


House Grimalkin

by Llewcie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cultural Differences, Fae & Fairies, M/M, Non-Penetrative Sex, Temporary Character Death, cat!castiel, fae!Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-16
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-03-07 18:34:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 22,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3178790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llewcie/pseuds/Llewcie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean is the child of two Courts, Seelie and UnSeelie, and was hidden at birth because he would have been killed if found.  Now the Prince of Cats is sent to find him, defend him against all enemies, and bring him back to the Never Never to end a brutal war that has taken the lives of a great many. Trouble is, Dean is an auto mechanic from a tiny town in South Dakota, has suffered from hallucinations his entire life, and the birthmark talisman that proves his identity was burned off in a house fire that took the lives of his parents.  Now the only way to prove that Dean is who Castiel claims him to be is to wake up Dean’s latent magic.  That is, if he can convince Dean not to kill him, that Dean is actually sane, and that everything he knows is a little less than half the truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter warning: Graphic description of burn scar.
> 
> The term 'Never Never' comes from Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden books. 
> 
> I apologise because I have broken a fic rule by editing after publishing-- the first six chapters are revised as of March 1st, 2015. I beg your forgiveness, but I have my reasons. I'm also looking for a beta. Blessings!

Dean Winchester isn’t crazy.   So he dropped out of high school in the middle of his junior year and began working at his Uncle Bobby’s auto shop-- he had never felt like school was the best fit for him, anyway.  The doctors, the shrinks, and the whole parade of specialists he had let poke at his head over the years had more or less agreed that highly social environments were always going to be difficult for him.   Dean will easily admit that out of good looks, charm, and brains, he is happy with batting two out of three.  But he is fucking positive that he is not crazy. Which is why this is turning out to be a very discouraging morning.

The spaniel-sized black cat with the white leaf-shaped patch on its chest sitting on Dean’s ancient formica table in his small kitchen is staring expectantly back at him, one needlepoint canine exposed in an oddly human-looking sneer.  Dean is staring back, hoping that maybe he is still asleep, dreaming about attempting to have a bowl of cereal before he heads to work instead of reassessing his sanity.  He sharply pinches the thin skin over the inside of his wrist, but the giant cat refuses to shimmer out of existence or turn into a potted plant. Dean tries a different tactic.

“Um, excuse me?”  he questions softly, afraid that if he talks too loud the beast might startle and then accidentally kill him.

“I asked your name,” it repeats, a bit more slowly, as if Dean is even less intelligent than it thought previously.  And coming from a cat, that stung a little.  “Are you Dean Morningstar?”  The cat peers at him, bright gold eyes narrowed to slits.  Its voice is rough and low, a slight accent tickling the corners.

 Even though the wrist-pinch failed to wake him, Dean decides to treat this as a dream anyway.  He has a lot of experience with dreams.  “Um,” Dean begins, and then licks his dry lips.  “My name is Dean _Winchester_.  You’ve obviously got the wrong Dean.  So if you’ll excuse me, I gotta get ready for work?”  His tone angles hopefully up at the end, because the cat’s expression is getting, if possible, even more irritated.  Dean can barely see the gold in its eyes anymore.  

 The cat peers at him for a moment, looking thoughtful.  It tips its head slightly to the side in an oddly human gesture.  “Show me your chest.”

 Dean blinks at him.  “What?”

 “Your chest, Dean.  Take off your shirt.”  The cat rises up on all four paws and looms off the edge of the table.  Now that it is standing, Dean hastily recategorizes its size to ‘Labrador.’  Its black head hovers less than half a foot from Dean’s, their eyes level with each other’s, making it a good foot taller than any housecat had any right to be.   Dean is still pretty sure he has misheard the cat, though.

 “You want me to take off my shirt?  Are you … perving on me?”

 The cat exhales loudly.  Its shoulders heave up and then down, and it shakes its head, looking down at its very sizable paws.  It mutters something in a sibilant language that Dean doesn’t understand except to know that the cat is likely cursing him. It looks up and meets Dean’s wary expression.  “You have a birthmark.”  It pauses expectantly, but Dean doesn’t respond.  “A small leaf.  On your right pectoral.  Above your heart.”

 Slowly, Dean shakes his head.  “No.”

 “Yes,” the cat insists.  “I know you do.  You are the Dean I am looking for.”

 At this unwitting cultural reference Dean mutters, ‘ok there, Obiwan’, but then sobers.  He returns the cat’s heartfelt sigh with interest, and then drags his shirt over his head in one smooth motion.  Tugging his head free, he returns his stare to the cat.  The cat stares back at him.  Or rather, at his chest.  

 “I told you, there is no birthmark, leaf-shaped or otherwise.”  Dean’s voice is flat, quiet.  The cat leans forward, close enough to brush its nose against the ruined skin over Dean’s right breast.  From his navel to his collarbone, and in a red, ropy wash across his right shoulder, Dean is carrying a livid burn scar.  It undulates in a pattern of folds, the dark red stripes where something had been torn away from blistering skin.  Where his right nipple would be is a shiny white splash of scar tissue.  

 The kitchen sinks into silence,  and Dean can hear his own tense breathing.  The cool air of the kitchen soothes his flushed skin.  After a moment, the cat turns its head away.  Dean tugs the shirt back over his head.  “Is there anything else I can help you with?  Take off my pants, maybe?”  The silence stretches like a shadow.

 Then, finally, “When did this happen?”  The cat’s voice is softer now, perhaps even subdued.  

 Dean shrugs, scratches the back of his neck.  “I dunno.  I was just a kid.” Dean is looking at the floor, but he glances up and the cat’s golden eyes are riveted to him.  After a moment, it speaks.

 “I am sorry that you suffered, Dean Winchester.”

 “Yeah, well--”  But Dean doesn’t continue; has no idea how.

 “But this changes nothing.”  The cat’s voice is firm. “You are who I have been sent to find.  There is no mistake.  Come with me and I will explain on the way.”

 Dean smiles at him then, and the cat gets a hopeful lift to its ears, its mouth opening slightly so that the gleam of incisors can be glimpsed,  as if it didn’t expect this to be so simple.  Of course, it wasn’t.  “Dude, I am not going anywhere with a talking housecat, even in a dream.  ”

 The cat stiffens, puffing out its chest to better show the white blaze across it.  “This is no dream and you know it.  I’m of House Grimalkin, you insolent--”

 “If this isn’t a dream, then you are making me late for work,” Dean continues over him.  “I don’t know who the fuck you think you are or where the fuck you came from, but are going to get the fuck off my table and hightail your ass out of here.  You get me?”  His eyes harden, eyebrows tightening to squeeze a double line over the bridge of his nose.  “Scram, Sylvester.”

 The cat bristles, obviously outraged.  “My name is not Sylvester!”

 Dean can’t help that his voice gets louder.  “I don’t care!”

 “My name is _Castiel,_ of House _Grimalkin_.  I am the Prince of Cats, heir to the---yeeeeoooowl!”    The cat may not be small, but Dean is not weak.  He hefts it up by the scruff of its neck and hauls it bodily to the front door.  The cat is spitting and struggling and attempting to scratch Dean’s eyes out so Dean holds him at arms length like he smells terrible and tries to open the front door with his foot.  “Put me down, you ignorant, asinine, _UNCULTURED CANINE_!”  Dean is not listening to him, struggling to reach the door handle with an elbow, when, all of the sudden, the cat gets tremendously heavier.  And taller.  Dean drops it to the floor, his mouth open in a little ‘o’ of surprise.

 Glaring up at him, black hair in shocking disarray and profound scowl twisting his lips, is a man.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Dean jumps backward with a barked ‘Fuck!’’ pinwheeling his arms when his hell skids on the hallway runner and just barely managing to stay upright. The man squeezes his eyes shut and bares his teeth, then looks down at himself in disgust, rubbing a hand through his wild hair. Dean catches a glimpse of a delicately pointed ear tucked under the black curls.

“This has not gone as I had planned. At all.” Castiel-- because it has to be Castiel— grimaces and then straightens, coming to his feet. He is naked. Dean looks away, blushing, but not before he sees the golden=brown leaf-shaped mark over Castiel’s right pectoral, the smooth muscle of his belly, the dark thatch of wiry curls at his groin. He refocuses on Castiel’s face, lifting his chin to prevent himself from staring. But then his eyes don’t know where to settle-- not on the man’s full lips, nor on his jewel-bright eyes.  Dean’s gaze finally rests on an eyebrow, only to watch it lift slightly. Castiel frowns at him, and then rolls his eyes. “Oh, so now I have your undivided attention.”

“Dude, ten seconds ago you were a cat.”  Dean’s voice squeaks, adding to his already considerable embarrassment.  

“I’m still a cat, Dean. A Cait Sidhe, actually.”  Castiel’s voice is heavy with dry sarcasm.  

Dean gathers as much of his dignity as he can, and replies without sounding like he is halfway through puberty. “Um, cool, whatever that is. Can you put some pants on, please?”  His eyes are still focused, laser-like, on that same eyebrow.

“Why would I do that? You’re actually listening to me now.”

All at once, the morning catches up with him, taking root behind his forehead with a hammer and chisel.  Of all the hallucinations he has experienced, this Castiel may well be the most persistent, and is certainly the most annoying.  His brain is pounding sickly against the inside of his skull and the pain makes up his mind.  Dean closes his eyes and presses a hand against his eyelids. “Ok, you know what? I’m going to work. I don’t even care what you do.”

Castiel snorts indelicately. “Then I’m going with you. It’s my duty to protect you now, and you’re not going anywhere without me.”

Dean’s eyes fly open again. “Dude, you can’t go to work with me.”

Castiel just cocks his head, an eyebrow raised, looking both offended and amused.

“No,” says Dean firmly. “No fucking way.”

 

(=^..^=)(=^..^=)(=^..^=)

 

“Fuck my life. At least put some pants on!”

“Cats don’t require pants, Dean.”

 

(=^..^=)(=^..^=)(=^..^=)

 

Dean’s not certain if he feels better that Castiel is cat-shaped or not. The man… or Cat-she… whatever-- had taken one long look at the Impala and had made an unhappy noise in the back of his throat. Before Dean could be offended, or at least voice it aloud, Castiel had sort of twisted, like a mobius strip made out of a person, and then the large cat was staring up at Dean with sad eyes. “If I must ride in a coffin made of iron to protect you, I will do so.”

Castiel sounded so tragically martyred that Dean choked a laugh, only to be pinned with an even more pathetic glare. “Someday, Dean Winchester, you will recognize what I am doing for you.”

“Sure dude. But if you puke on the upholstery, there will be no ‘someday.’ You get me?”

“Yes, Dean. I get you.”  There is a pause, the flavor of something odd in the silence.  Then, “Dean…”

“What?”

“You don’t seem especially frightened by my transformation.” Dean hears something in the cat’s voice-- something more than just curiosity.  Something like satisfaction.  “Or that I speak in this form,” Castiel continues.

Dean purses his lips.  “Hey, Cas?”

Castiel’s ears flick forward.  “Yes, Dean?”

But he doesn’t get to hear what Dean is about to tell him, because Dean reaches out and turns a dial, and the most painful, ear-splitting noise he has ever endured issues from the car’s console.  Castiel howls and covers his ears with his paws, but not before he catches the ivory flash of a grin that Dean throws his way. He spends the rest of the ride curled up in the smallest possible ball he can manage, and Dean might be able to make out that sibilant hissing and cursing, if only the music weren’t so loud.

 

(=^..^=)(=^..^=)(=^..^=)

 

Surprisingly, Dean is only half an hour late to the garage.  Bobby waves a good morning to him from the front counter.  Dean musters a grin, as if his life is exactly as mundane as it was yesterday.  Or, like, an hour ago.  “Hey Bobby.  Sorry I’m late-- I had, um, pest problems.”

Bobby grunts understandingly.  “Those raccoons getting into your trash again?”

Dean nods.  “Something like that.”  Castiel-the-overlarge-cat winds around his ankle and the hops up on the counter, peering at a startled Bobby.  

After a moment, Bobby shoots a wide-eyed glance at Dean.  “This your pest problem?”

“Man, you have no idea.”  Castiel wrinkles his nose at Dean, and then leans in to delicately sniff at Bobby’s beard, golden eyes narrowed.  Bobby reaches up and hesitantly scratches his ear.  Castiel rumbles an overlarge purr.

“Big fella, ain’t he?”

Dean smirks.  “Biggest damn cat I’ve ever seen.”  Castiel ignores Dean, turning his glossy head so Bobby’s scratches sink into his chin.

“Where did he come from?” Bobby asks.

“He just showed up this morning.  And then _wouldn’t leave_.”  Bobby grunts, and then gives the cat a final pat on the head, flattening Castiel’s ears.

“So, he got a name?”

Dean’s mouth softens into a grin.  “I’m calling him Sylvester.”

Castiel spears Dean with a glare, his golden eyes wide with fury.  Bobby grins back.  “Oh look, he knows his name already.”

“Yep.” Dean’s grin widens.  “He’s a bright one”

Castiel’s furious expression promises future bleeding, but Dean can’t stop the chuckle from escaping.  He pats Castiel heavily on the haunches.  “Aren’t you, boy?”

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Dean spends the entire day digging around in the weathered guts of a rusted ‘55 Chevy Nomad.   It’s an interesting automobile, a classic Chevy Bel Air from the front  and a hearse behind.  He supposes, as his hands scour the remnants of ice-green paint from the shell, that Chevy wanted in to the funeral business, ironically, since the Bel Air itself was such an eponymous drag racing car.  Still, the Nomad was a great car-- perfect for road trips when the owner was not hauling around bodies or fretting about the price of gas.  Dean let his mind drift as he worked. pointedly ignoring the cat sleeping on his cast-aside jacket on the wooden bench by the shop door.

Castiel had murmured something about how being surrounded by steel gave him a headache, and Dean had murmured back that he was free to leave at any time.  To which Castiel had given him an exasperated eyeroll and curled up in a little ball.  Every so often, Bobby would come by and pat Castiel on the head, which Dean thought was hilarious.

When Dean finally stands up and stretches, thinking about lunch, Castiel is still asleep, snoring in a very un-catlike manner.  His bright white canine teeth jut out of his mouth and his little black nose twitches like he is sniffing something suspicious.   Dean sneaks quietly past him, deciding he doesn’t need his jacket to walk a block to the diner and back.  He finds Bobby in the front office.  “You need anything for lunch, Bobby?” he whispers.

Bobby shakes his head.  “No, I’m good.”  By which he means, burger with everything but don’t tell Karen.  And then, “Why are we whispering?”

Dean nods back at the cat.  “Sleeping.”

Bobby gets a strange, familiar, concerned  look on his face.  “Dean…” he says slowly, quietly.  “Why did you bring it to work, anyways?”  Dean flushes, confused.  He doesn’t know what to say to Bobby.  On the one hand, Castiel is living proof that maybe Dean’s hallucinations aren’t actually hallucinations at all.  On the other hand, what if they are?  What if Castiel is _just a cat_?

“Yeah, Bobby.  It’s not...”  He clears his throat.  “I’m not… it’s not--”  He sighs, trying to muster a grin.  “Just don’t let him get out in the street and get run over or something.”  His cheeks burn.  His mind is reeling with self-doubt and confusion, and his headache has gotten worse, not better.  Feeling dizzy,  he turns to go, and hopes the walk in the chill November wind will clear his head.

As soon as his boots hit the pavement, he feels better.  The turmoil and pain in his head fades a bit in the bright late morning sunshine, and being away from Castiel makes it all a little less concrete.  It’s a ten minute walk to Marlin’s on the corner, and Dean waits with a plate of fries while they make two burgers with everything to go, including even more fries.  He smiles at Gina behind the lunch counter and she winks at him, their comfortable flirtation the same as always.  He fills his lungs with a deep even breath of grease-and-coffee scented normality, and breathes out tension.   

The peaceful feeling  lasts until, on the way back to Bobby’s, he glimpses the pig on the corner.  

Actually, it’s more of a boar, with bristles, tusks, and one ear missing a chunk of skin.  That, and the heavy-looking spiked club in its hoof-like hand, makes Dean think it might be of a thuggish inclination.  Its companion is vaguely jackal-looking, with a long thin snout and a gold hoop in its left ear.  He can see the overlap of human faces, human arms and hands, but they are fainter than he remembers them being.  Dean processes all of this while still walking, his steps falling maybe a little faster than before.  After all, this is not the first time he has seen odd-looking folks in the midst of a crowd.  Until Castiel, none of them had noticed him back.  

Castiel must have been the beginning of bad luck, though, because these two are heading towards him with intent.  Dean picks up the pace, wondering vaguely if this is what Castiel meant when he said something about ‘protection.’  Too late for regrets, now, and not enough time to make it to safety.  He is caught out in the open with a bag of burgers and fries.  

The pig reaches him first, and grabs his arm with a grip that belies the fact he only has three fingers.  Dean wrenches his arm but can’t break free.  The pig drags him to an alleyway, pulls him into the cold shadow.  Dean tugs hard to overbalance him, but the  jackal is there, pressing him against the wall.  “Hello, princeling,” it sneers.

Dean wavers in confusion-- princeling?  Surely two cases of mistaken identity in one day wasn’t coincidence?  He masks uncertainty with a sneer. “I don’t do doggy-style, asshole.”

The jackal grins a mouthful of needle teeth and glances at its comrade.  Dean uses the distraction without conscious thought and smashes his elbow down on its long canine nose,  and is rewarded with a ear-splitting howl.  The pig slams a heavy hoof down on his head, and Dean collapses in a flash of white agony.

His legs give out.  The gravel on the ground digs painfully into his knees.  He hears something like screaming, but he can’t tell where it’s coming from.  Vaguely he thinks, concussion by pig.  And then, nothing at all.

 

 

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

“--getting more frequent.  I’m trying to keep up, Robert Kitsune-sama, but I need assistance.  Bringing in my Captain makes strategic sense.”

“Prince, I have been protecting him since he was a kit.  That Captain Balthazar of yours is a pretentious ass.  I don’t like him.”

Dean stirs to the sound of angry whispers close by.  He squints at the pain behind his eyes and breathes out quietly.  The voices sound familiar, and though he has only heard one of the voices for the first time this morning, he is sure the gargling-with-razorblades voice belongs to Castiel.  And Bobby?  Why is his uncle arguing with the cat dude?

“You don’t like him because he used to yank your tails during ceremonies…”

“That’s only part of it!  He’s a _pooka_ , Castiel.  Unreliable, tricky--”

“Bobby, don’t be a racist.”

“Bobby?  What happened to Robert _Kitsune-sama_?”

“I don’t know-- he must have stepped out for the moment because all I can see now is a blustering old seven-tail--!”

“Listen, you milk-sipping _kitten_.  Calling this Captain of yours will only draw attention to this fucktastic trainwreck, and that’s the last thing we need.  We’ve survived this long!”

“This is different, and you know it!  They have found him now-- they will only become more determined.  With all due respect, the two of us aren’t going to be enough.”

Dean hears a sigh that sounds so familiar it could only be Bobby.  But clearly it couldn’t be Bobby, because what the hell was he talking about?  He shifts, and pain thumps dreadfully behind his temple.  The voices pause, dual intakes of breath, and he sees a shadow darken the door of his bedroom.  

Huh.  How did he get home?  

Bobby appears in the doorway, looking worried, his hat in his hands.  “You okay, kid?” he asks gruffly.  

Dean presses a hand to his forehead.  “Bobby, what the hell is going on?”

Bobby shuffles oddly, self-consciously.  “You got beat up in an alley.  We, um, we brought you home.”  

Dean grimaces and sits up, ignoring the room wheeling around him in a sickening carousel.  “Bobby, what the hell is going on, really?”

Bobby gives him a wide-eyed look that fools exactly no one. “What do you mean?”

Dean stares at him in disbelief.  “Oh, I dunno.  I was attacked by a pig and a dog in an alleyway; I’ve been talking to a cat-who-is-also-a-naked-dude all morning, who apparently you are having an argument with, and I’m just a little fucking confused as to who you are, exactly.”

Bobby sighs, deflating.  “This wasn’t how I’d planned this to go.”

“You know, you are the second person… whatever… who has said that to me today.”  Dean grunts painfully as he shoves himself out of bed, only belatedly realizing he has no pants on.  He casts around feebly for his jeans until Bobby shoves them into his hands and frowns a grimace at the floor.

“We’re gonna need coffee for this.”

“Oh, we’ll need more than coffee,” grumbles the voice out in the hallway.  Dean tugs on his jeans with one hand on the wall for balance, and stumbles out into the hall.  In the kitchen, puttering around by the coffeemaker with a frown of concentration, is Castiel-- man-shaped and shirtless.  Dean registers with some surprise that he bears some heavy bruising on his back and flanks, and that he is moving as gingerly as Dean is.  Dean lifts his chin to indicate the injuries.  

“Hate to see the other guy.”

“You won’t see them again, Dean.”  Castiel’s voice is calm, matter-of-fact.  A shivery little chill runs down Dean’s spine, and his eyes widen, but Castiel offers no further explanation.  He only frowns harder at the coffeemaker, and then lets Bobby nudge him gently out of the way.  Lacking anything else to do, he stands and gazes at Dean for a moment, his eyes tracking down Dean’s torso in a way that makes Dean feel uncomfortably exposed.  Castiel’s eyes are a luminous blue, overlarge in a handsome face, with a firm jaw and a dimple at the base of his chin.  Dean catalogs him almost absently, his eyes drifting downwards over his sleek well-muscled abdomen to the dramatic cut of his hipbones disappearing beneath the waist of the borrowed sweats.  The bruising mottles his golden skin in patterns of teeth and hands, with the worst on his spine and hips, like his back had been turned to his assailants.  It only takes a moment to click for Dean.

“You were protecting me.”  Dean is so certain he doesn’t even need to watch Castiel’s lips thin in confirmation.

“I wouldn’t have had to, had you heeded me.”

Dean can hear the censure, and his cheeks flush.  “Yeah, well, in my defense, you’re a fucking cat, man.”

Castiel grimaces at him, ivory teeth flashing from behind parted lips, and for a heartbeat Dean thinks Castiel is going to lunge at him, fasten those gleaming incisors to his throat.  He braces, eyes wide.

A loud throat-clearing startles them both, Castiel actually jumping back a little.  Bobby is holding the steaming carafe and three mugs with an incredulous look on his face.  Dean blinks a few times, realizes that Castiel is not, in fact, going to attack him, and sits down heavily at the kitchen table.  Bobby pours him a cup of coffee and adds a generous slug of whiskey.  He does the same for Castiel and then himself, before sitting down at the table with them and proceeding to look deeply uncomfortable.

Castiel breaks the silence with a loud slurp at his coffee.  His mug thunks back down on the table.  He fixes Dean with a look that seems half-concern, half-exasperation.  “I honestly don’t know where to begin, Dean Winchester.”

“How about with what the fuck is going on?” Dean counters pleasantly, taking a sip of his own coffee.

Bobby grimaces.  “It’s better to go back to the beginning.  But you aren’t going to like it, Dean.”  Dean nods.

“If it makes you feel any better, I already don’t like it.”

“Well, then.”  Bobby takes a deep drink, and Dean suspects his cup is more whiskey than coffee.  “That’s as good a place to start as any.”


	5. Chapter 5

Bobby picks at a corner of the old formica table as he speaks, his tone lilting with the familiar cadence of a lecture, a tone Dean has heard all his life.  

“You might be familiar with faerie stories, though I’ve tried to keep clear of them with you.”

Dean blurts, “Why?  If they’re true, if you know!”  Bobby shoots him a beady, irritated glare.

“Boy, if I take time to answer every outburst you are gonna have over this, we’ll be here a week.  Just… I know this is hard.”  He swallows, shadow creeping into the furrows in his brow and deepening the corners of his mouth.  “I know you have questions.  Just let me tell you everything, and then you can ask away.”

Dean subsides uncertainly, and is startled to feel a warm hand on his knee under the table.  He darts a glance at Castiel, who is sitting next to him, expression gentle and full of concern, his eyes on Dean.  Dean raises his eyebrows in surprise, and the pressure of his hand immediately recedes.  Castiel frowns at the table, his cheeks flushing pink.  

“As I was saying, you might have heard a story or two, but they are nearly always wrong, and it’s best that they stay that way.  The less humans know about the Never Never, the better for all concerned.  But you might have heard that there are two courts, and that’s true.”  He takes a drink, swallows with a grimace, and then takes a second drink before continuing.

“The Fae are generally divided into the Seelie and the Unseelie--old words that mean something like happy and unhappy, or maybe frivolous and serious, I guess.  People name them light and dark, good and evil, righteous and unrighteous, but none of those terms is accurate.  Both courts are dark and light, both have good parts and bad.  The only real difference is that the Seelie is strongest in the summertime, when the day is longest, and the Unseelie is strongest in the winter, gaining in power with the length of the night.”  Dean nods, holding his silence and his questions for the moment.

“Castiel here is House Grimalkin-- Grimalkin being the ruling House of Cats.  His mother, Lady Hannah, is King of Cats, and he’s First Prince, heir to the crown.”  

Castiel cuts in.  “The cats are neutral-- we do not take sides.  We and the like-minded who abide with us are not involved in the war.”  His eyes darken under lowered brows.  “Until the war engulfed us all.”

Dean can’t help himself.  “What war?

Bobby replies, with a pointed look at Castiel, “I’ll get to that, if you don’t mind, your furry highness?”

“One to talk, fox-face.”  They trade irritated frowns, and Castiel gives way with poor grace, rolling his eyes in Dean’s direction, and despite everything, Dean can grin in commiseration-- Bobby rolls on over all opposition under a full head of steam, or in this case, a full mug of Kentucky windage.

Bobby takes a moment to find his thread.  “It is forbidden for the very powerful of opposite courts to produce children with each other.  The offspring of such a union have strange powers that can be… unpredictable.  There have been a few.  Taliesin, Percival, Allen Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath…” Here, Bobby smiles softly, lost for a moment.  Dean shifts impatiently in his chair, and again he feels Castiel’s warm hand on his knee, a little more hesitant than before.  This time he doesn’t flinch, and Castiel’s hand settles and squeezes his kneecap gently.  Dean feels a soft wash of comfort flood over him, and he glances at Castiel, wonders if the Cait Sidhe is whammying him.  His thoughts are unsteady, but he can recognise that Castiel’s gentle gaze holds no malice.  Dean can accept this comfort.  He smiles gingerly, and his smile is softly echoed. Bobby clears his throat while he pours himself a mug of straight whiskey, pulling their divided attention back to his story.

“Anyway, like most forbidden things, it happens.  Some children become poets, some are monsters.  Some go crazy.  I guess you might know where I’m going with this.”

Dean shakes his head, his eyebrows raised in disbelief.  “Bobby, I have no fucking clue.”  He does, though.  He just doesn’t believe it.

“Dean,” Castiel begins, and then glances at Bobby, who nods at him.  He turns back to Dean, his eyes bright under creased brows.  “You are one of those children.”

Dean shakes his head again, more quickly this time, as if he is trying to shake off what he just heard.  “That’s… that can’t be true.  I’m nobody.  I’m a high school dropout-turned-auto mechanic that suffers from crazy hallucinations.”

Bobby looks away just as Castiel fixes on Dean.  “Not hallucinations, Dean.  Unless you believe I am one?”

“Dude, I don’t even know what you are.”

 Castiel lets him finish speaking, and then says, firmly, “Your parents were...are Lucidia Morningstar of the Winter Court,  and Raphael Lightningwing of the Summer Court.  You were birthed, and your mother sent you out of the Never Never that very same hour.  She believed that you were in danger-- that Raphael Lightningwing your father was not who he had put himself forward as.  We’ve learned much since then, mostly that your mother’s instincts were correct.  She vanished soon after, and until very recently we believed she had been killed.”  He sighs. “My mother, the Grimalkin, always believed that Luci Morningstar had escaped into the Beyond-the-Woods,” Castiel offers, scratching his cheek thoughtfully.  She sent me to find you, and she herself went looking for your mother.”  He pauses, his voice quieting.  “I have not heard from her in many days.”

They are all still for a long moment.  Dean’s mind is blank-- he has no grasp on what might be true or false.  They seem to be waiting for him to say something, so he asks, “Who are you, Bobby?”  His voice lacks its normal strength.  

Castiel speaks first with a gesture in Bobby’s direction.  “Robert Kitsune-Sama, he of Six Tails House.  Robert keeps the libraries for the Winter Court.”

Dean shakes his head.  “How is that even…?”  

Bobby’s mouth twists.  “I’m who your mother handed you to, boy.  I’ve hidden you all these years, from every loyal eye of Raphael’s come to find you.”

“No, but my parents-- my real parents died in a fire when I was a kid.  I remember, Bobby.”

If possible, Bobby looks even more conflicted.  “Dean, I don’t know what you will think of me.  But I owe you the truth, now that our cover’s blown.  I, um… the memories you have of your parents are not real.  There was never a fire.”

“But the scar--”

“Is a glamour.  A visual trick, to cover a birthmark that would have given us away before we even got started.”

Dean’s hand presses against his chest for a long tense moment, fingers feeling across the ropy ridges, before he stands and tugs his shirt off over his head, exposing the shiny pink and white scar tissue he has lived with all his life.  Castiel and Bobby stand with him, both of them looking warily at Dean.  “Then remove it, Bobby.  Or whoever you are.”  His voice comes out angry, and he sees Bobby flinch, but he can’t care about that right now.  Castiel turns to him, standing too close, his lips pressed in a thin line.

“Dean, Robert reared you, has dedicated his life to protecting you.  You should show him respect.”

But Bobby shakes his head.  “No, it’s alright, Castiel.  I’d be angry, too.”  He meets Dean’s eyes, but only for a moment, and then shrugs.  “This might hurt.”  He reaches out to Dean, blunt fingers halting a breath from Dean’s chest, and then he makes a fist and _pulls_.   _Hard_.

At first Dean feels nothing, and he’s about to whip out some unpleasant wisecrack, when something tickles his breastbone.  A thrumming flutters beneath his skin, beneath the scar, escalating slowly into a vibration that shakes Dean’s entire body.  He feels someone grip his shoulders but the world is juddering apart, and he can’t tell who is holding him.  Bright pain splits the skin across his sternum, peeling white hot agony from his bones.  His skin is being torn off, and he is screaming, writhing.  His entire world is pain.

Then with a ping like a lightbulb popping, it stops.

The first sound Dean hears is breathing.  It is a loud sound, ragged.  It matches the inhale exhale of his own lungs.  It is his own breathing.  Everything around him is dark.  Someone’s arm is tight against his belly, and a hand is pressed on his shoulder.  The sound of breathing not-his-own skims across his ear.  

A voice, close by the breath. “Dean?”  The voice is deep, gravel and moonshine.  

“Dean?  Are you alright?”  Another voice, different-- nasal and sharp, familiar, further away.  

“It’s dark.”  He hears himself, but that wasn’t what he meant to say.  He meant to say, “Who is holding me?  Whose is the heartbeat against my skin?”  

The first voice, close and behind him.  Castiel.  Castiel is holding him.  “Dean, your eyes are closed.”

“Oh.”  Dean opens his eyes.  And then, Dean _opens his eyes._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story of the Grimalkin is the oldest English horror story written in novel form. I'd tell it to you, but then i'd have to kill you.


	6. Chapter 6

When he was young, Dean had seen things, things which he realized early on that no one else could see.  Dean had seen people with two different faces, one overlapping the other, much like the pig and the dog in the alleyway.  He had seen cat ears, sheep’s horns, and butterfly wings on people’s heads and bodies.  And when he had told Bobby, once when they were out at the park, “Look at the man with the horse head!” Bobby had pulled him into an empty bathroom stall and nervously told him never to mention anything like that out loud ever again.  Had told him between gritted teeth, ‘It doesn’t matter what you think you see.   _It isn’t real, Dean._  People will think you’re crazy.”  Dean had gotten sick after that,  in bed for a week with a terrible, soul-crushing headache while Bobby watched over him, feeling him broth and bringing cold compresses for his head.  When he finally recovered enough to go outside again, the strange-shaped people were gone, except sometimes out of the corner of his eye.  And so Dean had tried hard all his life to not-notice these shadows, because he didn’t want people to think he was crazy.  He didn’t want Bobby to be afraid.  Eventually, even the shadow shapes faded out of his conscious mind.

Until Castiel the Talking Cat had held his kitchen table hostage that very morning.  Had it only been one day?

A slow, stubborn headache had been growing on him since then.  It wasn’t much different that normal-- he had mild headaches often.  But Castiel was… almost like a trigger, or the last puzzle piece, or a kick in the ass at the top of a very steep hill.  Dean had seen him transform into a man, and far from shattering his world-view, it just seemed so _normal_ , somehow.  As if the world had sighed out a breath it had been holding for twenty years.  And then the two goons in the alleyway; he had been able to see them so clearly.  The world took in another shuddering breath.  And then speaking to Bobby just now, he had caught a flicker in the cheap lamplight, something bright white and gold, keen-eyed and sharp-toothed.  Whiskers.

 

(=^..^=)(=^..^=)(=^..^=)

 

The first time Dean opens his eyes, the world is a bright, jittery blur.  Castiel and Bobby are darker blurs; Castiel is holding him off the floor and Bobby looms over him, blocking out the light.  Dean blinks, and he feels something like a curtain obscuring his vision.  His hand swipes out; he pushes it aside.  He catches his breath.

Bobby is a fox.  A golden-furred fox wearing a filthy ballcap and glasses.  Dean blinks at him, and then rubs his eyes.  Bobby is still a fox.  Dean turns to look at Castiel, and is moderately surprised to see that he looks exactly the same as he did five minutes ago.  Dean reaches up and touches Castiel’s face, and Castiel allows it, letting Dean drag his fingers across prickly stubble, soft lips.  “How come?” he manages to grit out.

Castiel turns has cheek gently into Dean’s hand (ah, Dean thinks-- there’s the cat...) and blinks softly at him.  “Because unlike our vulpine friend here, I am an actual shape-changer, and have no need of a glamour.

“I don’t need a glamour; I’m so fucking superior!” Bobby snipes, his golden nose twisting in a snit.  Dean looks back at him.  If he concentrates, he can see Bobby’s familiar human face like an overlay, brow crinkled in worry.  

Dean lets himself relax into Castiel’s arms, giving himself a moment to process what his eyes are telling him.  It sinks into him with rock-solid certainty-- that what he is seeing is the true world, and his life until now has been made of only shadows projected onto Plato’s cave wall. With this certainty comes the realization that his surrogate father, his _protector_ , has been the source of the flickering firelight.   “So, Bobby… all this time, you’ve been lying to me?  Telling me i’m crazy; letting me be traumatized by a memory that wasn’t even real.”  Dean’s voice is dull, lacking inflection.  

Bobby raises an eyebrow, his expression caught between defiant and regretful.  “Better that than dead.  You don’t realize how hard Raphael has been searching for you.”  He sighs tiredly.  “Layering protection over you was the only way to keep you from him.  Your mother chose me, out the handful of folks she trusted, because I am the best at glamour.  I know all the lore.  I keep the secrets.  And I kept you alive.  So I don’t care if you hate me, Dean.  I did my damn job.”  Bobby straightens slowly, then, his knees cracking, and reaches for the bottle of whiskey.  Dean catches Castiel staring at him with a frown of immense disapproval etched into his face.  

He considers for a long moment everything he had heard, forces himself to think beyond his amazement and betrayal.

Assuming everything that Bobby told him was the truth, and he can’t deny the rightness of it now,  he finds he can’t sustain his anger.  He begins to raise himself up, Castiel bracing him from behind, and inhales a steadying breath.  “Bobby, I don’t claim to understand why you did what you did, but I get that you tried to do your best for me.  And although that don’t make it right, I’m not angry, not really.”

Castiel helps him sit down at the kitchen table, his darkly handsome face gentled now in approval.  Dean gazes at him for a moment, basking in the kindness of his features.  Castiel licks over his bottom lip, and Dean’s eyes trace over the path of his tongue.  His brain is a blank for heartbeat or two, and then Bobby clears his throat gruffly.

“I don’t need your forgiveness, Dean.”  His sharp eyes are fixed on the ground, and Dean begins to reconcile his two visions of Bobby-- the gruff human and the unkempt fox so similar in expression they mirror each other.  “But I’ll take it.”    

Two pairs of eyes turn on Dean, one blue like sapphires and one hazel like autumn trees.  Both look on him with gentle affection.  Dean frowns to disguise a blush.  

“I… um, I still have questions.  A lot of them.”

“Yeah, well, sleep on it.  You’ve dealt with an awful lot tonight.  I’m gonna close the shop tomorrow, anyway, so get some rest.  You too, Prince.  I’ll take the couch.”  With that, Bobby slouches over to the blue plaid couch, lays down on it and tugs an afghan over his shoulders.  Dean can’t help but stare at the array of tails tufting out from under the blanket.

In the quiet after Bobby has burrowed into the cushions, Dean turns to Castiel, a sudden shyness tightening his throat.  Castiel looks back at him, solemn, a soft question in his eyes.  Dean asks, “Do you… are you going to stay?”

“Yes, Dean.  I will stay with you.”  Castiel’s gravelly voice is gentle, private.  The corner of Dean’s mouth quirks.  

“Oh.  Because, you know, I figured you have guard duty or something.”  Dean’s cheeks heat up, embarrassed at asking this almost perfect stranger to stay with him and hold his hand.  Dean doesn’t need a babysitter.  But right now he is desperate for a friend.  Although Castiel might not qualify, exactly, he seems both willing and available.  Their chilly animosity from the morning has dissolved into a warm regard, and damned if Dean isn’t going to analyze it too closely tonight.

Castiel shakes his head.  “I would prefer to stay close.  In the same room, if possible.  Would that be alright with you? ”  Castiel is looking at him from under his long lashes, and Dean’s thoughts scatter and reform imperfectly.

“Yeah, no, um.  Yeah.  I would like that.  I mean, just in case there are more, um, pigs, or whatever.”  Castiel smiles at him then, and Dean smiles back, warmth blooming behind his ribs.

“The two of you are turning my stomach,” grumps Bobby from the couch, his voice muffled by a pillow over his head.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, Bobby…” Dean mumbles back.  But he can’t help but feel a little disappointed when he comes to his bedroom after brushing his teeth and Castiel is curled up on the foot of the bed, black fur sleek and golden eyes alert.  Dean reaches out hesitantly and then scritches the back of Castiel’s head gently, and is rewarded with a warm purr.

“Good night, Dean.  I will keep watch over you.”

“Yeah, Cas.  Good night.”  But Dean is awake for a long time, not tossing and turning but just listening to the calm purr of his guardian, wondering how the hell this is his life.


	7. Chapter 7

He opens his eyes to the cold darkness, and knows immediately that he is not in his bedroom, although he can still feel the sheets and pillows tucked around his body.  A sense of open space surrounds him with the odd weight of emptiness, the small rustle of his movements fading outwards rather than bouncing back from the walls and ceiling. He leans his head to the right and to the left, but can make out nothing, not even shapes.  

A feathery note of music whispers in the silence.  It is coming from beyond him, surrounding the bed where he is laying.   Dean is reminded of a wooden flute he used to play around with when he was a kid, prancing around the house like the faun in Narnia, Mr. Tumnus.  This has a similar breathy, playful quality.  He shifts in his bed, tugging away the covers and straightening his legs, but before he can swing his feet to the ground he has the breath knocked out of him by a warm, heavy weight.  A hand presses to his mouth before he can cry out. “No.  Do not move,” tickles a rough voice his ear.

“Cas?”  His voice is muffled, and the hand lifts away to press against his sternum instead.

“You are being lured, Dean.  Leave this bed and you will be at their mercy.”  Dean can’t see Castiel, but he can feel the Cait Sidhe’s body pressed down against his, covering him, and the fae’s hot mouth against the skin right below his ear.   Dean flushes hotly even as his body stills.

“Whose mercy?” he manages to whisper back into Castiel’s hair, breathing in the warm scent of cardamom and coffee.  Dean takes a deeper breath, ethereal music completely forgotten.  

“Raphael is looking for you.  He is close to discovering you.  Be still.”  They are both silent, breathing shallowly, but Dean can’t help but shift against Castiel to dislodge the fae’s knee from pressing painfully against his thigh.  Castiel exhales against him, and Dean presses his hand to the back of Castiel’s neck.

“You know, had I known you were interested, Cas, I would have offered earlier…”

Castiel snorts.  “Yesterday morning you didn’t even know me.”

Dean grins against Castiel’s cheek.  “A lot has happened since then.”  He shifts again, because Castiel’s elbow is digging into his ribs.  “Dude, for a fairy, you are really heavy.”

A long-suffering sigh. “Dean, shut up, please.”

“Make me.”

Dean can feel Castiel’s body move against him, and the tickle of his breath feather across his cheek.  His heart bumps against his ribcage despite the darkness surrounding them, and for a moment he thinks Castiel is going to kiss him.

But Castiel inhales sharply, and Dean blinks at him, at the phosphorescent glow that is lighting his skin.  Castiel is staring out above the head of the bed, and Dean turns carefully to follow his gaze.  Twin orbs of a greenish light glow out of the dark.  They’re eyes, Dean realizes.  And there is more than one pair.  As he looks on in growing uneasiness, a dozen sets of eyes snap open, then two dozen.  All of them glow the same foxfire green.

“Fuck,” Castiel breathes.  His body is tensing up, and Dean tenses beneath him.

“What is it, Cas?”

Castiel glances down at him, and his now-visible blue eyes soften, blooming lines at the corners.  “Dean.”  

“Cas?” “Dean.  Don’t worry.   I’ll hold them off.”  He takes a deep breath, and then a large cat is standing on Dean’s chest.  “I’ll hold them all off.  Get to Bobby and Balthazar.”  Castiel flashes him a wild grin,  and then his back claws dig into Dean’s hips painfully, and he springs off the bed.  Dean shouts after him, and his voice echoes back to him.  He is in his bedroom, with the gold and pink early dawn light streaming in through the window.  He looks around the bed, and then the floor, but there is no one else in the room.  Castiel is gone.  Urgency fills him like electricity-- he knows that was more than just a dream.

Dean throws himself out of his bed and into the hallway.  “Cas!”  He stumbles into the kitchen, where Bobby and a blonde man Dean doesn’t know are standing up from the battered kitchen chairs, where they had been having coffee.

“Dean!”  Bobby is staring at him.  “What in the blazes?”  

Dean grips Bobby’s upper arm tightly.  “There was a dream-- Cas said Raphael was looking for me, and then there were eyes, and he said he would hold them off!  He jumped off me and then I woke up.  Where is he?”

“He jumped off you?” a sardonic voice asks.  The blonde man is looking down at Dean’s pyjama pants.  “What was he doing on you?”  A strange bitterness glitters out of his eyes.  He turns to Bobby before Dean can answer.  “Is this the child Morningstar we are meant to be protecting?”

Bobby scowls.  “Balthazar, shut up and walk a perimeter check, will you?  I checked the wards an hour ago, but it never hurts to be safe.”

Balthazar returns the scowl, and narrows his sharp eyes at Dean before spinning on his heel and morphing into a lean tabby halfway through a leap out the window.  Bobby scoffs.  “Damned showoff.”

“Cas isn’t here?”

Bobby shakes his head.  “He was in there with you, but if he’s gone, I didn’t feel the wards break.  You probably just dreamed it, Dean-- Lord knows you have every reason to have vivid dreams.”

“It wasn’t just a dream, Bobby.  How would you know anyway?”  He turns angrily back to Bobby, still flustered by Balthazar’s strange reaction to him and by the hyper-real feeling of the ‘dream.’  “You’ve never taught me to do anything but suppress myself.”  Dean knows it’s an unworthy dig, but he can’t help himself, can’t stop the genuine anger and frustration that is building inside him.  He doesn’t have time to say anything else, though, before Balthazar bursts in the front door.  

“Bobby!  Come, now!”  Bobby leaps into motion, surprisingly graceful for a middle-aged codger.  Dean is on his heels out the door but they are both brought up short by Balthazar, sinking to his knees a few meters from the porch.  In front of him is a black lump of… Dean’s brain short circuits and reroutes.  Clothing?  A trash bag, maybe? But he can see red spatters on the concrete sidewalk, and a patch of red-stained white.  Balthazar slips his hand gently under the body and lifts it up into his arms.  Dean feels a sudden surge of protectiveness, though he knows it’s not his place.  Balthazar is cradling Castiel’s body in his arms.

“How…?”  Dean’s voice fades off, because he knows exactly how.  Somehow between one minute and the next, Castiel had given his life to protect Dean.  He feels hollow. Bobby kneels on the ground and presses his fingertips into the dirt.

“Even I can’t ward one of the High Court,” mutters Bobby.  He turns his gaze up to Balthazar, and the body in his arms.  “Damn fool.”  He sighs heavily.  Balthazar isn’t moving but for his thumb stroking Castiel’s furry cheek.

“If he’d have called us instead of leaping in after Raphael… “

“We all would have died, Bal.  You know he’s ten times the fighter of both of us combined.”  Dean can barely swallow, and is too afraid to speak.  Balthazar turns his gaze to Bobby, and then to Dean.  His lips thin into a sneer, but the corner of his mouth is trembling.

“Perhaps.  And now we are left with a whelp that is worth half a farthing, and he who sacrificed for him worth a thousand pounds.  How can we ever balance this?  First Hannah King Grimalkin, and now the Prince and heir?  Who will stand against the two Courts now?”  He shakes his head, broken-hearted.  “You know very well that we are lost.”

For a moment, Bobby says nothing, and Dean truly wants to die… make a cosmic trade and offer his life for this almost perfect stranger.  But Bobby stands closer to Dean, and puts his hand on Dean’s shoulder.  “Castiel knew something, Bal.  He believed something about Dean.  And I won’t betray him in his sacrifice.  If he’s truly gone Beyond-the-Woods, then he did it for a reason.”

“Beyond-the-Woods?”  Dean surprises himself by finding his voice.  He clears his throat.  “Cas… Castiel told me that’s where his mother is.”

Balthazar gives him a scathing look, before he shoves past Dean back into the house, carrying Castiel’s battered body with a reverent tenderness that belies his anger and grief.  Bobby squeezes his shoulder, and then drops his hand.  “Dean, this isn’t your fault,” he mutters.  Dean shakes his head, his eyes beginning to fill with tears.  He glances up to clear them and startles at what he sees.  A dozen cats ring the yard.  More than a dozen; maybe twenty-five, and he can see more trotting in from all around them.  They are all colors and sizes, full-grown to kittenish, well-kept to much-battered.  Several are missing bits of their ears, and one is missing a front leg.  They make no noise.  

Bobby’s jaw trembles and he  visibly steels himself.  He turns to face one of the cats-- a large silver tabby with its ear bitten off and a scar over the opposite brow.  Bobby bows.  He says with no flourish, “Castiel the Grimalkin is dead.”  

At once a mournful yowl rises up from the gathered cats, chilling Dean’s blood.  They cry out to the sky.  The silver tabby stares at Bobby, and speaks.  Her voice is gentle and sweet.  “Did he die well?”

Bobby nodded, losing the ability to speak for a long moment.  He cleared his throat and replied, gruffly, “He died keeping his promise, with honor.”

The silver tabby nods, and is silent while the keening around her strengthens.  Then, she focuses on Dean, a knife-glint in her grey eyes.  “Is he to be avenged?”

Bobby is silent.  Dean meets her gaze with tears in his own eyes.  Bobby looks over at him as Dean nods his head, once.  “Hell, yes.  I’m gonna kill that son of a bitch.”

She stares at him for a long time, and he stares back at her, wondering if she is going to kill him for speaking out of turn, for being unworthy.  Finally, her head dips down.  “We will spread the word.  Raphael’s life is forfeit.  He will find no safe harbor.  He will find no place to lay his head.”

Dean can only gape at her.  “Wait, you knew?”

She meets his eyes, her own quite calculating for a cat.  For a moment she seems to be weighing something in her mind.  Then she takes a breath to speak, her little striped breast raising.  “It has been said…”  Bobby chokes a gasp beside him, but Dean can’t tear his eyes away from her fierce little face.  “It has been said that when the morning comes, the storm will be abolished.  It has been said that the light of the morning star can penetrate any darkness.”  She pauses.  “I was not the one to say these things.”  The cats are silent now; Dean didn’t realize they had stopped their mourning.  Now they seem to be politely listening.  “I only heard them said.”

“Strange, the things one hears,” Bobby nods.  Now Dean turns to gape at him, and Bobby lifts an eyebrow at him, so Dean nods dumbly.  Seemingly satisfied, the silver tabby turns her back on them, and as one, the cats turn with her and wander off into the city.

At barely eight in the morning, the street is completely empty again, and Dean’s entire world is on its ear.

“What the fuck, Bobby.”  

Bobby turns to him, his eyes alive with what Dean has always recognised as interest.  Now, maybe he sees something else.  Maybe, Bobby looks hopeful.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. It's been a tough time for migraines. I love spring but I hate it, you feel me? So, extra long chapter in apology!

Balthazar has laid out Castiel’s body on the coffee table.  He has cleaned the fur of blood and wrapped Castiel in Dean’s bedsheet, and now he is staring, sightless, out the window.  Dean’s eyes are fixed on the small bundle.

Finally, Balthazar speaks.  “What are we to do now?”  He sighs, hands pressed against his eyes.  “There’s no telling how long he’ll be on the other side of the Water.  Certainly he won’t find his way back across the River before Mabon. ”

Dean turns to glare at him.  “What the fuck are you talking about?  He’s dead, not lost."

Bobby clears his throat, and Dean watches his many tails swish back and forth.  “Humans have an afterlife, right?  They believe the soul never truly dies.  Fae afterlife is more…”  He pauses; begins again.    “To some Fae, death is… liminal.  Especially to the Grimalkin-- it’s a hallmark of the House.   Beyond-the-Woods isn’t the final place-- it’s a threshold.  One which Castiel and Hannah King both have navigated before.”

Dean gaped at him.  “So why are we mourning?  Why the whole thing with the cat chorus, if he’s not dead?”  He feels a mix of confusion and relief that he can’t parse.

Balthazar answers him.  “Last time Castiel passed beyond the Water, it took him five decades to find his way back.”

Dean’s heart sinks.  “Oh.”  So he really is gone.  He sinks into a kitchen chair, and thinks distantly his heart is being crushed by a fist.

After a moment, Bobby speaks again.  “House Freyja has made a prophecy.”

Balthazar and Dean both turn to stare at him.  Dean’s eyes are wide.  “I thought she was just repeating a rumor, Bobby?”

“That’s prophesy to cats.  None of them would ever repeat anything they weren’t certain of,” Balthazar explained to Dean, animosity temporarily forgotten.  He turns again to Bobby.  “At what remove?”

Bobby actually quirks a small grin.  “She allows that she heard it said.”

Balthazar shoots up off the couch.  “That she heard it herself?  Brising of House Freyja herself?  What did she say?  What was the prophecy?”

“When the morning comes, the storm will be abolished.  Also, that the light of the morning star can penetrate any darkness,” Bobby repeats, brow furrowed.

Dean asks, “What does that mean?”

Bobby shakes his head.  “Well, the ‘storm’ could refer to Raphael himself, or to the war between the courts, or both.  ‘Darkness’ could be plenty of things, except the reference to the morning star is pretty obvious, and that narrows it down a bit.”

Dean’s eyes fall to Castiel’s small body.  “She meant me, didn’t she?  Cas must have believed something about me… otherwise he wouldn’t have…”  He falls silent.  Bobby continues, his voice softer.

“If she was, then the ‘darkness’ might refer to two things.  One is that as a child of both Courts, you can see through any glamour or other falsehood to the truth of things.”  He sighs.  “I never did tell you what this is all about.”  His eyes fixed on Castiel’s body, he sinks into an armchair. “What Castiel wanted me to tell you.  About the war.”  Bobby takes a moment to gather his thoughts, pressing his lips together.  “ Just before you were born, your mother somehow discovered that Raphael was planning to use your birth-gift to give him enough advantage to become sole ruler of both courts.  Your mother was murdered before she could do anything but save you from him.  But even without you, all these years he has sown dissent between the Courts, playing them against each other until war became inevitable.  Still, he does not hold the power to gain the full trust of either side.  And the Cait Sidhe have always known he was a deceiver, although they have not been able to prove it.”

Dean can only think, numbly, of the burn scar he had carried all his life.  “Obviously I can’t see through glamors, Bobby.  And Cas knew that.  So what the fuck was this all for?”

At that, Bobby flushes, and even Balthazar looks away from the window to stare at Bobby.  “You drugged him, didn’t you?”  he states baldly.

Bobby’s eyes close. “Not in so many words.  I didn’t want to harm him, but I couldn’t risk him giving us both away.”  He turns a pleading look to Dean.  “You have to understand, I did what I had to.”

Dean stares at him.  “What did you do?”

“Well…”  Bobby tugs at an ear, scratching distractedly.  “Iron is poisonous to fae.”

“Yeah, Cas got sick.  But I’ve been around iron all my life, in the body shop?  I’ve been fine.”

“And you’ve had headaches, haven’t you?  Can’t remember a time without ‘em?”  Dean nods, too dumbstruck to speak.  Bobby plows on.  “ I’ve surrounded you with iron and steel your entire life to keep you too weak to come into your own.  I’m not sorry, Dean.  When you were just a kid, when you told me about the kelpie in the park,  I even fed you iron tablets for a week.  I thought maybe I had killed you, but you pulled through.”  Bobby looks defiant now, his golden eyes sharp. 

“But what about Equinox, Bobby?” interjects Balthazar.  “Even iron poisoning couldn’t prevent him from Seeing on those nights.”  Balthazar looks both horrified and grudgingly impressed.  Dean just feels sick.

“Not if he was unconscious.”

“Jesus, Bobby!”  Dean is out of his chair, his mind reeling in turmoil.  “How is this better than being kidnapped by my own father!”

“This has never been about you, Dean!”  A shocked silence descends on the other two.  Bobby is livid.  “I made a promise to your mother, and by my Tails I kept it.  If I loved you like a son, that was never my first consideration.”  He grips Dean by the shoulders.  “And I do love you, boy, but not to sacrifice both our peoples to Raphael’s insanity!”

They are all three completely silent.  Dean stares at the face of his guardian, his thought processes slowed to crawling. He puts it together for himself, out loud so they can both hear him, and maybe disagree, deny it.  “So my mother gave me to you for safekeeping.  And you have poisoned me, traumatized me, and hidden from me my true self.  You have lied to me all my life.  Were you ever going to tell me?”

Bobby deflates all at once, his hands dropping to his sides, and sinks into an armchair.  “I’ve been waiting.  Hannah King assured me she would come.  I’ve grown old waiting.”  He tapers off, staring at Castiel’s unmoving body.  Abruptly, he stands up, grips the neck of a whiskey bottle, and walks into the guest bedroom and shuts the door.  

Dean is left glaring at Balthazar, who puts his hands up in the air as if in surrender.  “I just got here this morning.”

Dean shakes his head, and collapses onto the threadbare couch.  “I don’t even know anything anymore.”

Balthazar raises his eyebrows, pressing his lips together as he nods his head.  “I find I can’t hate you quite as much as I did before this series of revelations.”

“Well, that’s a fucking load off, Bal.  Thanks.”  They both stare at the floor for a moment, and then Balthazar produces a bottle of bourbon from nowhere.  

“Drink?”

“Do you have another bottle in your ass?”

Balthazar grins at him, and Dean finds himself grinning back, just a little.  The tension in the room eases, very slightly.

(=^..^=)(=^..^=)(=^..^=)

Three cups in, Balthazar begins to fill in the gaps a bit.  He is a bit grudging at first, but gradually the bourbon works its magic. Through it all, he keeps a hand on Castiel’s flank, though neither of them can bear to talk about him.

“As a child of both Courts, you have a unique gift.  Two days a year, your strength is at its peak, and no one can doubt what you say is true.  The coming equinox, Castiel meant you to stand in front of both Courts and end this war; expose Raphael for the his deceit.”  Balthazar sighs.  “But now, without either Hannah Grimalkin or Castiel to vouch for your identity… well, it may still be worth a try.”

“Cas said his mother went to Beyond-the-Woods?  Why?”

“Hannah King went to find your mother, Dean, chasing rumors of other Cait Sidhe who had seen her.  Her word as to your identity could not be doubted.”

“But… I thought she was murdered?”

“Yeah… Beyond-the-Woods is a place for those not at rest.  Hannah King took a risk in going, though of all of us the fae the cats can walk where none else would dare.  But Cas… Castiel presumed her lost.  It is a dangerous place even for one as mighty as she.  And now Castiel has crossed untimely, and there is no one I know who can retrieve  him in time.”

“Why not?  If it’s just a matter of looking, I’ll go.  It’s my fault he’s there.”

“Don’t be stupid, Dean.  Even if you manage to get there, you have no idea what waits for you.  You’ll be lost, and with you our best hope to end this.”

“But wait.  That cat lady said I could see through any darkness.”

“Are you speaking of the Lady of House Freyja, the wise and honorable Brising?  That cat lady?”  The resigned sarcasm is unmistakable.

“The silver tabby?”  Balthazar places a hand against his forehead and closes his eyes as if in pain, but he nods and waves at Dean to continue.  “And Bobby said the darkness could mean two things.  The war is one. I’m guessing the other is death.  Am I right?” But Dean knows he’s right.  He doesn’t need to ask.

“I see you are already coming into your power, Soothsayer,” Balthazar mutters grudgingly.  “It’s possible.  But it’s also possible you would be going to your death, and I can’t have that on my conscience.  Castiel’s last request to me was to get you to the Court on the Equinox.  I intend to do so.”  He sits up, a little wobbily.  “Besides, I don’t know the way.  I’m only a pooka.”  He stares at Castiel, the grief plain on his face.  “Castiel never cared about my being a pooka.”  

Dean can only nod.  In a moment, Balthazar has slumped back down in the armchair, and in another moment he begins to snore, the bottle tipping in his hand.  Dean gently removes it and places it on the floor.  After a moment, without examining his thoughts too closely, he gathers up Castiel into his arms.  The small cat body is stiff and cold now, and Dean doesn’t know what to do with him.  He had known Castiel for all of one day, and he knows he is responsible for this, regardless of anyone else’s opinion.  He lays on his back and pulls his knees up, tucking Castiel’s body tightly against him.  

Soon he, too, is asleep.

(=^..^=)(=^..^=)(=^..^=)

Dean wakes up on the couch alone.  Castiel’s body is not in his arms, nor is Balthazar slumped next to him.

“Bobby?” he calls out. “Bal?”  No answer.  The late afternoon sun streams in the window, and Dean realizes that he’s missed lunch.  He’s not real hungry, though, and that’s certainly understandable, with all that’s happened.  He stands and stretches his back and shoulders, sore from sleeping propped upright.  “Bobby?” he tries again.

A shadow passes over the window.  He turns to look, but whatever made the shadow is already gone.  And then he stops and stares, because his window is not looking out onto his front yard anymore.  

A wide green lawn stretches out into the distance, and is ringed by a thick stand of trees, all of them heavy with brightly-colored fruit.  The sweet heady scent of apples breezes in through the half-drawn curtains.  Dean steps closer to the window, taking in the jewel bright colors of an autumn that has already passed.   “Vivid dreams, man,” he comments to himself.

“I took the liberty--”  Dean spins on his heel, and there is Castiel, perched on the couch he just got up from, human, and alive.  “... of divesting the house of iron.  Yesterday before you woke.” he adds.

“You’re dead,” Dean breathes, soaking in the sight of his long legs, still in sweatpants, and his lean, naked torso.  Castiel’s golden skin glows in the soft autumn sunlight, and his eyes… his eyes are the color of clear blue topaz, scintillating in the sunbeam.  His feet are bare, toenails neatly trimmed, and his hair is wildly uncombed.  He looks like a young god.  He looks like sex.  

“I am,” agrees Castiel blandly.  He stands slowly, stretching so seductively that Dean’s lips part, and he’s aware that he’s breathing through his mouth but he can’t help it, can barely keep his knees under him.  Castiel takes a step toward him, hips swaying, and then another, and Dean is paralyzed, partly with desire and partly with astonishment that he is dreaming this right now, when his sleeping body must still be clutching Castiel’s stiffening body in his arms.  But this dream clearly doesn’t care, and  Castiel slinks right up to him, presses his body to Dean’s from chest to thigh.

Dean flushes.  “This isn’t right.  I… God, I can’t be dreaming about you like this.”  He is stammering out words, barely thinking, as Castiel raises his lips to Dean’s cheek.

“I need you to do something for me, Dean,” he whispers, and his voice is rushed, strained.  Dean tenses, and Castiel’s hand strokes down his back like a ribbon of fire.  “I’m sorry… sorry to m-molest you like this but I may be in over my head.”  Castiel tips his head back, and his eyes are half-mast, heavy lidded.  But his pupils-- they are pinpricks.  “Dean…”  he moans, audibly, and Dean understands there is something more happening here even if his body is all on board with this.  Dean settles a hand on Castiel’s hip, his fingertips on the hot skin above the waistband of Castiel’s pants, and tugs him closer.  

“Cas… fuck…” and he doesn’t even have to pretend, if indeed that is what Castiel wants.  Dean noses along Castiel’s jaw and nips at his ear, and the body pressed against him trembles.  “I don’t know what to do, Cas.”

Castiel kisses his cheek.  “Dean, come and find me.”

“How?” 

“You have to wake up, Dean.  You have to open the door.”  Castiel kisses him, soft and slow.  His lips move gently, warm against Dean’s mouth, and Cas whispers, “Wake up, Dean.”


	9. Chapter 9

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black

and the dark street winds and bends.

Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow

we shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow

and watch where the chalk-white arrows go

to the place where the sidewalk ends.

\--Shel Silverstein

Dean wakes up in a breathy rush.  His gaze darts around the room.  Balthazar is still passed out next to him.  Castiel’s small body is still cradled in his arms.  The light outside is bright early afternoon sunlight, but inside the room is only cool shadow.  Castiel’s words are still pressed against his lips.   Wake up, Dean.  For a moment, Dean sits there expectantly, but when nothing happens, he stands and shuffles to the front door.  Is this the door he is supposed to open?  He gazes out the little window set into the door at eye level, and he can see the street in front of the house rather than the rolling green of his dream.  

Dean adjusts Castiel’s body more securely in his arms, and places his hand on the door knob.  The brass, worn in places to the base metal, is cold under his fingers.  A throb of urgency laces through his gut, and he thinks,  This is it.  This is me, holding a dead cat, hoping that the other side of this door is faery-land.  This is where the sidewalk ends.

He breathes in, closes his eyes, and thinks hard of Castiel pressed against him, lips and the hard planes of his torso. the abrupt jut of his hipbones, the fear in the crinkles around his eyes.  He thinks of stepping out into nothing, like Harrison Ford in the Last Crusade, motivated by desperation and faith.  He thinks,  I am coming.   He twists the knob and opens the door.

A fluttering explodes in his face, and he opens his eyes in shock to see a hundred flapping butterflies issuing outwards from his arms.  Castiel’s body is gone, and the bedsheet flops to the ground.  A butterfly settles on his cheek, another on his fingertips.  Its wings are soft black, with wide blue eyespots on each aft wing.  The bulk of them are flapping away, towards the forest border, and Dean realizes he is standing on the lawn from his dream.  He actually is.  He turns in a slow circle to find that his front door is still behind him, open to the front hall.  Feeling self-conscious, he stretches back inside to grab the keys off the tray, chucks the bedsheet into the living room, and shuts and locks the door.  No use inviting trouble, he thinks as he pockets the keys.  Beyond the door, the green rolls for several hundred yards before it is cut off abruptly by the edge of the woods.  It’s just him, the door, and the lawn, and a hundred butterflies.

The breeze ruffles his hair and stirs the butterflies’ delicate wings in circular currents.  With no other ideas beyond urgently wanting to find Castiel as soon as possible, he starts off in the direction of the butterflies.  The lawn is clipped short with golf course precision, and the turf is dense and springy under his boots.  Not a single weed, shoot, or tree breaks its clean green lines.  As he nears the edge of the woods, the grass lightens to the color of winter wheat, like the zoysia grass turfing the outfield in the baseball field near his house.  A whiff of something more darkly organic tickles his nose, like rotting leaves and stagnant water.  Dean leans down and stuffs the cuffs of his jeans into his boots, ties them tightly, and straightens.  Castiel’s butterflies are all but gone deeper into the trees, but he sees a few that have settled on the lower branches of near trees.  He takes a breath and plunges onward.

Once through the thicket border of the woods, the light dims noticeably.   The forest floor is difficult-to-navigate old growth, choked with fallen branches and thick clusters of slender-limbed saplings and arching ferns.  He immediately wishes he had his jacket, and soon his arms are striped with red and white scratches.  There is no path beneath his boots; just the flicker of a black and blue wing here and there, and his own certainty, held in both hands, that he is finally where he is supposed to be.

As Dean walks, trips, and stumbles through the woods, his mind spins back over the events of the last few days.  After a lifetime of not fitting in to his own skin, he is beginning to feel himself filling out.  For once, his head doesn’t hurt, and in the absence of pain,  his thoughts flow without the need for translation, or transubstantiation.  The thought that Castiel is here, somewhere beyond him, and that he needs Dean is all the impetus he requires.  He keeps walking, watching for the butterflies, and his minds falls quiet.  He focuses on the series of events that led him here-- on the appearance of Castiel, his transformation, Bobby’s revelations of his actions taken to protect Dean and his betrayal, and Castiel’s disappearance and death.  And then Cas walking across his dreamscape and flipping his world on its ear again.  First, it was Dean’s eyes, and then his hands.  Now he is afraid that his heart is next.

Eventually, Dean realizes that it’s even dimmer than before, although he can’t tell if it’s because the woods are growing closer together or that evening is falling.  He steps over a thin trickle of muddy water and comes to a standstill, a feeling of caution wrapping around him.  When he squints, he can see a lighter area up ahead.  Carefully he moves forward, trying not to step on anything but bare ground.  A clearing opens up just ahead of him, and within it, he can see a small house appear out of the shadows of the trees.

The house is stereotypically rustic, with rough wood framed door and windows and thatched roof that looked like it needed some attention about fifty years ago.  It sags at the crown of the roof and in-between each rafter.  Surrounding it in a circular clearing is a bizarre collection of car bodies, manual tools, and assorted containers, all in various states of rusted-out decay.  Dean immediately feels his headache creep back in, and he squeezes his eyes shut against it.  The entire house is ringed with rusted iron in a deliberate labyrinth, and Dean can see no way to approach it otherwise.  He frowns, pondering the best path, when a tiny flick against his nose startles him.  One of the butterflies is flapping against his cheek and mouth.  He shoos it gently away, and it flutters off, around the back of the clearing.  For lack of any better ideas, Dean follows.

He has walked two-thirds of the way around, keeping the little house always on his right, when he spots the gathering of butterflies fluttering on a smooth outcropping of grey stone twisted over with a plant that looks a lot like English ivy.  Dean kneels down in front of it and sweeps the surface with a hand.  He feels the join with his fingers before he sees it.  After a few minutes of tearing off ivy and clearing it, he realizes he is looking at the top of a well that’s been sealed with a flat stone.  He braces himself against the edge, takes a deep breath, and shoves for all he’s worth.

It shifts slowly, and Dean shoves harder, until he can feel the veins in his forehead throbbing.  With a great screech, it moves backward until it falls off the back of the well.  Dean looks down into the darkness, wishing he had thought to bring a flashlight.  “Cas?” he hazards.  His voice echoes a little and then fades.  For a moment, there is nothing.  Then, a figure paces beneath the opening and looks up at him.  Dean grins at the open astonishment on Castiel’s face.  “Cas!”

Castiel is looking up at him in open wonder.  “Dean!  You came!”

“Well, you know, I didn’t have anything better to do this afternoon.”  Castiel is smiling now, all sharp white teeth and pink gums and crinkled nose.  Dean thinks he is beautiful.

“Are the two of you done flirting for now?  Because I for one would really like to get out of here.”  A voice Dean doesn’t recognise cuts through their greetings.  Castiel turns away from him to look deeper down the well tunnel, and a woman walks into view, gazing up at Dean.  “You must be Dean.”  She bears a striking similarity to Castiel-- or rather, he to her.  Her long curly hair is the same shade of midnight brown, and her eyes are beautifully blue, although not quite as bright.   Her ivory skin is streaked with muck and she rubs at her forehead with an equally filthy hand.

He nods.  “Yeah, how’d you guess?  And you must be Hannah?”

She gives him a quirky grin as she side-eyes Castiel.  “I could hardly mistake you-- I’ve been trapped down here for an age and all I’ve heard about for the past day is Dean this and Dean that.”  Castiel bows his head, but even in the dim light Dean can see the delicate tips of his ears go bright pink.  “But yes, I’m Hannah, King Grimalkin and mud pie.”  Dean grins, deciding he likes her.  She continues, “ I hope you brought a rope!.”  Dean fumbles for a moment, before Castiel simply cups his hand and braces, and propels Hannah upward as an enormous black cat who lands deftly on the rim of the well.  “Just kidding, Dean,” she finishes, her still-blue eyes sparkling.  She shivers back into human form, and Dean squeezes his eyes shut, mortified.  

A beat passes.  “Dean?  Why are your eyes closed?”

He blushes.  “I, um, didn’t really want to see you naked?”

She snorts.  “Why would I be naked?”  He cautiously opens his eyes to find her fully dressed.  She is staring at him, confusion clear on her face.  “Castiel, why would Dean think I was going to be naked?” she projects down into the well.  

After a moment, Castiel’s voice echoes back up.  “A little help here?  I can’t transform while I’m still in the well-basin.”

Dean peers down at him.  “You mean you were naked on purpose?”  Castiel’s expression is caught halfway between chagrin and annoyance.  

“Can we discuss this later?”  Dean narrows his eyes, but climbs over the lip of the well so that Castiel can use his body as a ladder.  Castiel’s hands grip his ankles, and overhands to Dean’s calves and then his hips.  His powerful thighs clamp around Dean’s as he shimmies up Dean’s body, finally transforming at about shoulder height and leaping the rest of the distance.  Then strong hands grip Dean and haul him out of the well.  They all stand next to each other to catch their breath for a moment, and Dean looks pointedly at Castiel, who is still in Dean’s sweats.  He lifts an eyebrow, and Castiel fights a smile.  “I had limited time, Dean,” he offers, as if that explains it all.  But before Dean can think of a suitable rejoinder, Hannah grasps each of their shoulders.  

“Enough.  We have no time, and our problems are much worse than I had originally thought them to be.”  She takes a long moment to look at Dean, and he feels exposed.  “But I promise you, if we survive this, I will allow you to petition the Court of Cats for permission to woo my son.”

Dean stares at her as she turns and strides off into the woods.  He looks askance at Castiel, who is staring at her as well.  Castiel meets his gaze, wide-eyed.  “She’s kidding.  She’s… she wouldn’t… “

"Castiel!  Dean! Quit dawdling!”

They race to catch up with her.


	10. Chapter 10

Castiel is jogging alongside Dean in his human form, even though Hannah is dashing ahead on four paws.  As a cat, she looks exactly like Castiel, except her striking blue eyes are same in both forms.  The woods they are running through are very ordinary-looking, and Dean can’t help but be a little disappointed.  He nudges Castiel who is pacing him easily, “Hey, what’s with the woods, Cas?’

“What do you mean?”

“I dunno; I guess I thought faery woods would be… prettier?  Full of unicorns and shit?”

Castiel gazes at him for a long moment.  “You truly can see through glamours.”

Dean side-eyes him.  “So what are you saying?  That I’m missing out on unicorns?”

Castiel grins.  “And lure-flowers, rainbow sparkles, sexy dryads… so much, actually.  I feel like you need to come here during solstice so you can see a few wonders.”

Dean feels a blush creep across his cheekbones.  “Is this you asking me if i’m gonna be around in three months?”

Castiel glances at him, eyes coy, his expression play-serious.  “Are you going to be around in three months?”

“I dunno.”  Castiel’s face falls, so Dean nudges him again.  “How long is it gonna take me to petition the Court to woo you?”

Castiel barks a short laugh, looking pleased.  He clasps a hand behind Dean’s elbow and squeezes.  “I thought that you would be angry with me, the way I… came on to you in your dream.”

“I was definitely not angry.”  Dean can’t help his blooming smile, now, remembering how Castiel felt pressed up against him, hot and solid and good.  “How did you do that, exactly?  You want to fill me in?  Like, with everything that happened after you… after you died?  Because I am a little traumatized here.”

“I’m sorry, Dean.  I am truly sorry.  Everything happened much faster than we had anticipated.”  He sighs.  “I realized immediately on waking that I had to cross, and quickly, but even then I was too late.  I was taken only moments after my passing, and imprisoned in the iron-bound well basin with my mother.  I was so relieved that she was alive.  Although the iron kept us weakened, I was able to dreamwalk with you.  Which was very good-- otherwise we would still be there and you would likely be captive, or dead.”

“So what’s the bad news?”  Dean dreads asking, but he can feel it looming over them.

Hannah is the one who answers him.  “That this conspiracy goes deeper than we believed.  Lucidia was indeed alive. When I came to her, at first, she was welcoming and sweet.  She told me that Raphael had imprisoned her here, and that she had no way of getting back, so she had waited all these years to be found.”  Hannah gave Dean a pointed look.  “She asked about you, Dean.  About whether you had come into your own.  I told her I didn’t know.”

“But isn’t she my mother?  I mean, where is she?”

“Dean.”  Hannah stops, and Castiel pauses too, his hand still clasped around Dean’s arm.  “I’m sorry to tell you this, but Lucidia is not a victim of Raphael.  She’s been the one calling the shots all along.  And if we don’t make it to the Dual Court before the equinox then she is going to walk right in and take both Courts to their knees.  And then all allied Courts, including the Court of Cats, will fall to her.”

He tries to process this, realizes he is saturated with too many new things, and files it for later.  “When is the equinox?” he asks instead.

“In 31 hours.  It’s roughly a day’s walk to the Crossing Bridge from here, so this is a matter of some urgency.”  Hannah turns then, all speaking done, and trots ahead.  Castiel stays with Dean, peering at him carefully.

“Dean, are you alright?”  His blue eyes gleam in the soft evening light like shimmering water.  He is standing close, so close that Dean can feel the warmth of his body radiating through his t-shirt and jeans.  “I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?  That my parents are megalomaniacs?  That the man who raised me brainwashed me and poisoned me all my life?”  Dean’s voice wavers.  “That you kissed me?”

“Yes, I am sorry that your biological parents are trying to take something that is not theirs.  I regret what Robert Kitsune-sama did to you, but I believe he did protect you to the best of his ability.  Never.”

“Never what?”

“I’ll never regret kissing you, Dean.  And perhaps… perhaps someday, we could…?”

Dean leans further into Castiel’s space.  “Do I have to ask permission from your mother?”

Castiel snorts.  “Shut up, Dean.”  He presses his lips against Dean’s, tentatively, like he is prepared to take it back.  Dean presses back, opens his mouth to let Castiel’s bottom lip slip in-between his lips.  In a burst of heat, Castiel winds his fingers up into Dean’s hair and surges into the kiss.  He sucks Dean’s top lip into his mouth and licks his tongue over the roof of Dean’s mouth.  Dean grips the back of his neck and the small of his back, clutching hard enough that they could be sharing the same body and still not be close enough.  Castiel’s other hand slides down Dean’s back to squeeze his ass, and over Dean’s grunt of approval they both hear a throat clearing.  

They break apart only at the mouth, both turning their heads so that their cheeks are pressed together.  Hannah is glaring at them, human eyebrows raised in irritated disbelief.  Castiel bends first.  “Apologies, mother.”  He lets Dean’s head and ass go, but reluctantly.  Dean sighs and loosens his grip on Castiel’s body.  “Yeah, um, sorry mom.”  Castiel grins at him, and Hannah rolls her eyes before she turns again and trots down the path.

They kiss a soft moment more before finally untangling themselves and following after, plunging deeper into the woods in the dark.


	11. Chapter 11

I wanna tell you bout my good thing  
I ain't disclosing no names but--  
He sure is a good friend and!  
I ain't gonna tell you where he comes from, no!  
If I tell you you wont come again! Hey!  
I ain't gonna tell you nothin but I do will, but I know, yeah!  
\--The Crunge, Led Zeppelin, Houses of the Holy  


The walk is long and difficult.  Although Castiel and Hannah ease their strain by taking their feline shapes, Dean is stuck human, so he is beginning to regret that his weird faery powers don’t include shapeshifting.  He is much too big to be carried; at least, that is what he thinks at first.  Eventually, when he is stumbling down a hill and barely able to keep standing, Hannah pauses beside her son, looks back at Dean, and murmurs something in Castiel’s ear.  He nods and gazes back at Dean, who has now stopped and is glaring at them both, irritated that he is the one holding them back.  Castiel walks back to him and says, without preamble, “I am sufficiently rested.  I can carry you now, Dean.”

Dean looks mutely back at him.  “Dude, I’ve got 20 pounds on you, at least.  I am not piggybacking with you through Faeryland.”

Castiel just gives him a sunny smile.  “Prepare to be impressed, Dean.”  He twists, in that way of his, and curls affectionately around Dean’s ankles for a moment before pausing between his knees.  Then, he gets taller.  Bulkier.  Before any time has gone by, his shoulders are pressing apart Dean’s thighs.  Dean yelps as his feet leave the ground and he clutches wildly at Castiel’s scruff to keep his balance.  Dean squeezes his legs around Castiel’s broad torso, right behind his shoulder blades, and hangs on for dear life.  Castiel rumbles an amused purr that vibrates Dean’s entire body.  All Dean can choke out is a high-pitched, “Dude!”

“Dean,” Castiel rumbles, “You may be the first man to ride on my back, but I promise I won’t drop you.  Hang on tight,”  With that poor warning, he plunges forward between the trees.  Dean clutches desperately to the dense warm fur beneath his hands.  He crouches down low between Castiel’s shoulder blades.  

“Cas, I am not okay with this!”  he squeaks out.  

“Dean, you must trust my son.”  Hannah paces next to them, her small body darting in-between Castiel’s massive paws.  “He will not let you fall.”  And then she shoots ahead, and Castiel puts on a burst of speed to follow, and there is no more breath to talk with.

They travel through endless green, never stopping to rest.  Dean is one big trembling ache of overused muscle, clamped down on sleek moving muscle beneath him.  He thinks this might be erotic under different circumstances, but a very real fear of falling off and killing himself keeps him from enjoying the smooth powerful motion beneath him.  Still, he is himself, so he shouts, “Pretty sexy, Cas, having you under me like this!”

Castiel spares him a gold-eyed glance, eyes huge and reflective even in the low light.  “I hope it’s not the only position you like!” he shoots back.  Dean flushes hot at that, his brain eagerly supplying him with images of Cas looming over him, pressing down into him, taking him over.  He shivers and grins.  

They travel for hours, all through the night.  Dean manages not to fall asleep, fighting fatigue with every breath.  Soon Castiel has no more strength to converse, so Hannah runs next to him, speaking to Dean about many things-- about Castiel as a kitten, and his cousins from the House-- Gabriel, who was a tawny tabby and a wily diplomat; Anna, who was orange as the sunset and a fierce warrior.  Dean contents himself with listening, and squeezing Castiel when something Hannah says is particularly sweet or funny.  He is filled with the certainty that he wants to know Castiel’s family-- that he wants to be a part of it.  He has never been so sure of anything.  That knowledge takes him into the sunrise and the edge of the forest, where they roll to a stop.

Castiel barely comes to a complete halt before he morphs under Dean and collapses on the ground in total exhaustion.  Dean falls halfway on top of him, grunts an apology, and then scoops Castiel into his arms and rolling over, lying beneath him and letting Castiel rest away from the hard ground.  Castiel shudders on top of him, heaving breaths into raw lungs, and clutches weakly at Dean’s shoulders.  He whispers into Dean’s ear, “When I... imagined being on top of you, I could... actually move.”  Dean grins and nuzzles into the sweaty hair behind Cas’s ear.  Cas smells warm, like earth and sunlight is soaked in his skin.  Hannah drops beside them, panting.  “We can rest here, but only a moment.  The bridge is ahead, and the first test.”

“Test?”  Dean glances at her, his hand threading through Castiel’s damp hair.  She nods, all four of her little paws sticking up in the air.  

“It will all serve as proof that you are who you say you are.  Do not worry, Dean.  I have faith in you.”

Castiel murmurs something like, “Mrrp,” into Dean’s throat.  Dean sighs and closes his eyes, too tired to worry.

(=^..^=)(=^..^=)(=^..^=)

They only rest for a moment; it’s not nearly adequate to heal their aching bodies.  Hannah and Castiel can feel the pressing of time as the moon begins to slot into place, unseen overhead.  Dean can feel their nerves setting off his own.  “So what’s the first test?”

Hannah smiles at him, her human face tense but confident.  “You must choose the correct path.  We cannot help you.  The Courts are watching now, and they will not allow any to interfere.”

He stalls.  “How do I know what the right path is?”

She raises her eyebrow at him.  “You will either know, or you won’t.”  Castiel is standing beside him, and turns to press a kiss into his cheek, his hand firm against the small of Dean’s back.  Dean turns back to him, presses his mouth against Castiel’s mouth.  His eyes close for a moment, and he feels Castiel’s eyelashes scrape soft against his cheek.  Then he is being nudged gently forward, to a clearing where three bridges arch over a small river.  

He eyes each bridge in turn.  The one on his left is made of wood,  honey-colored and unvarnished.  It has a gentle arch of curving footboards and a simple fence-like border on each side.  Dean squints at it, but it’s just a bridge.  He turns to the second.  

The middle bridge is made of white stone, carved in intricate patterns of birds and fish.  Its arch is much more dramatic, curving twice as high as the left bridge, with a much wider span.  The path of the bridge is smooth and white, with no blemish.  He turns to the one on his right.  This one is made of stones, smooth like they were rounded in an ancient river.  It is nearly flat, without much room underneath it for the lazy flow of water.  

They are all three just bridges, built to accommodate foot traffic over an unimpressive brook.  Dean recognizes that there is a trick here, somewhere, but damned if he can perceive it.   He hums under his breath, a discordant melody, and mutters, “ _Excuse me… Oh will you excuse me...I'm just trying to find the bridge... Has anybody seen the bridge?... Where's that confounded bridge?"_

And the bridge in the center flickers.  

Dean walks closer to it, and mentally rewinds to the beginning of “The Crunge.”  He sings, more loudly now, “ _I wanna tell you bout my good thing; I ain't disclosing no names but-- He sure is a good friend and! I ain't gonna tell you where he comes from, no!_ ”  And as soon as he starts singing, the images of the bridges fade to translucent.  All three of them.  It’s soon clear to Dean that there are no bridges at all.  Instead, in the middle of the brook, a small odd-looking creature stoops in the prow of a little boat.  It looks a little like a cat, in that it has huge yellow eyes and pointed ears with tufts of light brown hair sticking up awry.  But its little body is furless and covered with a toga that looks like it was made out of old red gingham placemats.  In its skinny arms it holds a single spindly oar.  It is looking at him with trepidation, shivering a little.  Dean stops at the edge of the bank.

“Hey,” he offers.  The little guy’s eyes blow so wide they seem to take up its whole face.  It shuffles a bit, awkwardly, and then squeaks, “He can see me?”

Dean grins.  “Nice, um, tablecloth?”

This agitates the little goblin further.  “He can’t have it!”  It brandishes the oar in a threatening manner, and Dean is trying not to laugh, but it must show, because its expression goes stormy.  “He is not very polite!” it says pointedly, huge eyes narrowing.

Dean holds up his hand, attempting to smooth his expression.  “Um, apologies.  I’m Dean.”

“Hmmph,” it snorts, but seems slightly mollified, the oar relaxing.  “What does Dean wish?”

Instead of answering, Dean tilts his head.  “What’s your name?”

It’s eyes get huge again, and then it blushes, sallow skin pinking,  eyes down, and mutters something inaudible.  Dean tilts his ear towards it.  It shuffles its large feet and scuffs a toe against the boards of the little boat.  “Bikitt.”  

So Dean holds out his hand.  “It’s nice to meet you, Bikett.”  The goblin’s face is a study in astonishment.  It reaches out hesitantly and then grasps Dean’s finger, shyly, with its weedy hand.  

“Dean is nice,”  Bikett murmurs, blush deepening.  “Bikett won’t drown him.”  The huge yellow eyes peer at Dean, who tries not to startle.  

“Were you planning to?”  he asks carefully.

Bikett looks down.  “Told to.  Orders.”  It waves at something behind it.  “But Bikett still has choices.”  Its lip trembles.  Dean has a sudden suspicion that orders come with consequences.  He makes a quick decision.

“You, uh, you wanna come with us, Bikett?”  Bikett is gazing at him again, so Dean hedges.  “We may be doing into danger.  But you are welcome to join the party.”  Dean glances back to Hannah and Castiel, who are both looking at him with open wonder.  Castiel gives him a soft smile.

“We would be honored to have you with us, Bikett Tuftbutton,” Castiel offers.  The little goblin’s eyes switch to Castiel.

“The great Prince Grimalkin knows Bikett’s House?”  This looks like a day of firsts for the little guy, and he sways unsteadily.  “Bikett would be honored to be among such grand company,”  it says decidedly. It gives a little bow, and then waves Dean onto the boat.  Hannah and Castiel hop in after, curling up in the bottom of the boat.  Dean sits cautiously as Bikett begins to row them across.

“So, um, this brook looks like I could walk across it, huh?”  Bikett grins at him, sharp teeth gleaming cheerily.

“Dean Morningstar should know by now that looks deceive.  This water, it is deep beyond knowing.  Drag you down, never to be seen again. “  Bikett turns back to rowing, leaving Dean pursing his lips thoughtfully.  He drops his hand to stroke behind Castiel’s ear.  Too soon, the boat nudges the other bank, and Dean climbs out carefully, and then reaches down to the little ferry-goblin.  

“You got us across safe.  Would you do me the honor of riding on my shoulder and taking lookout?”  The goblin happily hops up to Dean’s shoulder and takes a handful of Dean’s hair.  Hannah and Castiel trot ahead, leading their little party onward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: All lyrics are from “The Crunge.” Suggested by my husband when I told him I had a bridge problem. The little brook is based on the Bolton Strid in Yorkshire-- an actual brook that will eat you. Please tell me if there was something you liked! Feedback makes Bikett happy. Btw, if you didn't realize it, Bikett is a faery ferry-goblin. HA.


	12. Chapter 12

The next trial is upon them without any warning at all.  A row of oddly-dressed people block their path.   They are all tall, with long faces and narrow features, and many different shades of skin and hair.  They are clothed in leaves and grass and scraps, and several have no shoes.  They look related in that all are wearing matching sour scowls.  No one says anything for a long moment, until Castiel and Hannah move to stand in front of Dean, still with Bikett on his shoulder.  Hannah speaks first.

“I am Hannah, King Grimalkin.  I see you.”  

The center-most figure, skin and hair silvery in the afternoon light,  bows slightly, and says, in a voice like water over stones, “ We see you, Hannah King.”

Castiel mirrors his mother, his voice gruff.  “I am Castiel, Prince Grimalkin.  I see you, Council.”  The line murmurs but several nod in acknowledgment.  The central figure repeats, “We see you, Castiel Prince.”

To Dean’s utter surprise, the little goblin on his shoulder speaks next, in a high pitched but calm voice.  “I am Bikett, Prince of House Tuftbutton.  I see you.”

An unsettled shuffling shifts through the line-up, even as Bikett is acknowledged, at the same time Dean turns to Bikett.  “Dude, you’re a prince?”  The little goblin looks at him archly.  

“Appearances deceive, Dean Morningstar.  Did I not mention that to you?”  

“You did!” Dean exclaims, a grin lighting his eyes.  “But I guess I’m a slow learner.”

Bikett grins back. “I chose you, Dean Morningstar, because you treated me politely without knowing my rank.  That is rare, and I think, much needed.”  The goblin pats him on the head.  “Your turn.”

Dean turns to the standing Fae and clears his throat.  “I, um.  I grew up Dean Winchester, raised by my Uncle Bobby, who is evidently a kitsune.  I am Dean Morningstar.  I’m not a prince of anything.  At least, I don’t think so.” He casts a questioning glance at Castiel, but Cas is watching the others.  They are silent, frowning at him, casting eyes at the others standing with him.  Dean waits, since he doesn’t know what else to do, and feels another reassuring pat from Bikett.

Finally, one steps forward.  It could be male or female, with long pale hair and deep brown skin.  It blinks with owlish eyes, looks a little sleepy actually, and Dean thinks, don’t judge by appearances.  He straightens his shoulders and turns his attention politely to the Fae, who speaks in a deep, sonorous voice.  “Not very impressive, Grimalkin.  If you were looking for a champion, you might have found one that at least knew how to speak.”

A beat passes, and Bikett nudges Dean in the back of the head with an elbow, before Dean realizes he’s supposed to answer.  The Fae hasn’t shocked him, or even insulted him, really.  He did learn snark at Bobby’s knee.  He raises an eyebrow.  “Speaking is a trick I could teach my dog, but that don’t mean he understands what he says.”

The Fae full on scowls at that, but its eyes narrow.  It backs up until it is flush with the group of them, and then it nods at Dean.  “I see you, Dean Morningstar,” it mutters.  Before Dean can feel any sort of triumph, a second Fae steps up, a challenge on its pale yellow face.  And Dean is looking only at its face, thank you, because he has a pretty good guess that this one might be male.

“If you are Dean Morningstar, tell me what I’m wearing.”  It looks smug, and Dean sees a couple of nods of approval.  He squints at it, and then chews his lip.

“Um, well, it seems like you slept in a rake pile this morning, and a few leaves got stuck in your hair.”   Yellow Face’s jaw drops open, and its hands fly down to cover its hairy crotch.  It drops back, flushing peach, something Dean can unfortunately see happening across its whole body.  “I see you,” it chokes out.

A third steps forward, this one with shining green eyes and black hair down to its waist.  “So you’ve got a clever tongue, and you can see through a few paltry glamours.” A cry of protest comes from Yellow Face, but Black Hair shushes it with a sharp hand.  “I want to know how you came to be here at all.  How a Fae raised as a human was brought here.  Who carried you over the Border?”

Dean gathers his thoughts, thinking that he actually had no idea how it happened.  He can only tell the truth.  “Well, Cas here, he died-- he just left his body on my front lawn, protecting me from being attacked… which was really awful, by the way.” He glares at Cas, who lowers his eyes, looking chagrined.  “And then I dreamed that Cas…” He falters.  Castiel’s ears are bright red now.  “...that Cas came and told me to open a door, come and find him.  And when I woke up, I took his body and I opened my front door, and he just exploded into butterflies.  So I followed the butterflies, and found him and Hannah in a well.”

That response gets several audible mumbles, including a quick eye from Hannah.  She looks impressed-- Dean hadn’t told her the whole story.  Black Hair glares at Dean, and Dean gazes blandly back at it.  He can feel the tension rising, and Bikett is holding onto his his hair in an ever-tightening grip.  Finally, Black Hair sneers.  “I see you, Dean Morningstar.”  It backs into the group, and a there is a palpable, collective exhale from the clearing.  

The middle Fae claps its hands, and all attention turns to it.  “Three questions, three answers.  My judgement is that he is who Hannah King claims him to be.”  It turns fully to the small group, and sketches a little bow.  “I am Alaras, a mage in the House of Red Crescent.  Dean Morningstar, I must ask, what is your purpose here?”

Dean straightens his shoulders.  “I’m here to try and end this war.  You know what I can do, so now all you gotta do is let me do it.”

The Fae Alaras looks like it is suffering from constipation for a moment.  It holds a whispered conversation with its fellow Fae, while Hannah turns to Castiel and gives him a long look.  Dean feels Bikett go tense on his shoulder, and he sees Castiel tense as well.   Finally, Alaras looks back at Hannah.

“You know…” it begins nervously.  “You know that Lord Raphael holds sway with the Courts.”  Its pink tongue flicks against its thin lips.  “Now Lucidia, who we all thought dead, has appeared out of her long darkness and is calling for Raphael’s banishment.  She has called for a truce, for a meeting of all High Houses. Tonight.”

Hannah nods decisively.  “Tonight will be the end of things, then, one way or another.”

Alaras pales so much that Dean thinks it will pass out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry for the short update (and the splitting chapters-- oops!) I am also sorry that English has no readily recognizable gender-neutral pronoun. I might re-edit this using xir/xem instead of 'it,' which I don't like using with people. Next up-- the meeting of the Courts, where all hell breaks loose, fur flies, and people get their feelings hurt, among other things. Don't forget to tell me what you think!


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello-- sorry for the longer wait, but here's an extra long chapter to make up for it! I got stuck here for a moment-- Raph and Luci got a little too clever for me and I was a bit flummoxed. Fortunately staring at a blank computer screen actually produced results! Also, thanks to [Saltandbyrne's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/saltandbyrne/pseuds/saltandbyrne) recommendation of Kid Koala in the fic ['What Once Was Sacred." ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/992203) That music got me through.

“So is there any chance of a cheeseburger before we crash the party tonight?” Dean asks.  His belly has been rumbling for what seems like hours.  They are walking on a well-kept white flagstone road, crowds of brightly-clothed chattering travelers pressing in from their sides and behind.  Castiel glances up at him, his blue eyes catching the golden light of the setting sun, and smiles in commiseration. Ahead, Bikett is riding with Hannah, who is speaking to Alaras with cautious hands, their voices not carrying back to them.  The other Fae of the Council walk in a loose ring around Alaras, leaving Dean and Castiel mostly to themselves.  Dean lets himself stare at Castiel for a moment, just take him in while it’s calm.  Castiel’s smile softens, and he reaches his hand up and clasps Dean’s shoulder.   The weight of his hand is welcome and warm.

“Dean, I don’t know what will happen tonight, but I do know that I would really enjoy a cheeseburger with you.”  What he doesn’t say hangs in the air anyway, that there is no guarantee that there will be burgers or anything else after the dust has settled.  None of them have any idea what Lucidia is planning-- whether she intends to kill her erstwhile husband or join with him, or how Dean will fit into any of it.  Dean knows he will not let Lucidia or Raphael or anyone else continue to terrorize his friends.  He may not know them as well as he might like, but Castiel and Hannah and Bikett, Bobby… even Balthazar deserve to live free of coercion and war.  Dean reaches up and places his hand over Cas’s hand and returns the smile.

“Dude, we’ll have cheeseburgers and french fries and pie.  You’ll pass out in a food coma and I’ll carry you home in the back of the Impala.”

Castiel makes a comical face, like his stomach is upset.  “Urh, the metal can of nausea.”

Dean’s mouth falls open.  “You did not just insult my car!”  He shrugs Castiel’s hand off and turns his body away.  “I can’t believe I let you kiss me.”  Beside him, Castiel snorts.  

“Alright, say you bring me to your home.  What happens next?”  Castiel’s eyes catch Dean’s again, and Dean feels a hot ripple low in his belly.  He swallows, watches Castiel track the bob of his throat.  All of the sudden, Dean feels slightly out of his depth.  He’s always been the pursuer, the one who decided who ended up in his bed.  He’s had a fair many men and women walk through his door, too-- he’s by no means inexperienced with sex and pleasure.  But Castiel makes him feel… vulnerable.  Castiel is very literally a predator, with power enough behind massive paws to tear Dean into scraps.  That both frightens Dean and thrills him, in a way he has never felt before.  And he wants it.  He wants Cas, and not for one night, or a long weekend.  If they make it through this intact, Castiel is it for him.  

He grins, the realization making him a little dizzy.  “I’m sure we can find something to fill our time while my petition for you goes through the Court.”

Castiel’s eyes grow both gentle and serious, something soft with longing behind them.  “Dean… I don’t know if you realize, but my mother is speaking of a… of a petition of betrothal.”  He drops his gaze to the road, his bare feet dusty.  “I don’t imagine that you knew that, or- or want that.”

“Hey.”  Dean stops him with a hand against his breastbone.  People bump against them, grumbling as they press beyond them.  They become an island in a moving river, but neither of them are paying attention to anything but each other.  “Hey,” he says more softly.  “That is exactly what I want, Cas.  You are exactly what I want.”  He is a little breathless at the gentle wonder blooming in Cas’s face.  “If you’ll have me, that is.”

Cas, wide-eyed, leaps at him, arms clasping around the back of his neck, and presses his lips to Dean’s.  Dean smiles against Cas’s mouth, and Cas grins too so that their teeth click together.  Cas pulls back and kisses Dean, and kisses him again.  “Yes.”  Kisses him.  “Dean, yes, I’ll have you.”  Dean tilts his head, threads his fingers through the curls at Castiel’s nape, kisses him open-mouthed and hot as the people flood around them.

(=^..^=)(=^..^=)(=^..^=)

Its increasingly obvious that the crowd of people is going to the same place they are going.  Hannah is grimly calm, having asked if there was any way to keep so many away from what could very well be a slaughter.  A terse Alaras answered that it would be impossible to do so; the law is set up so that the Courts are open for all on Equinox,  and there is no authority strong enough to keep people away.  Although Lucidia must know they are coming, Dean included.  She is either prepared for them or she is not, and they will find out when they get there, and not a moment sooner.

Dean walks beside Cas now, holding hands and strategizing quietly.  They are approaching the city now, and the crowds jostle them from every direction.  Hannah King is clearly recognized, and hailed by more than a few.  There are several cats, or rather, Cait Sidhe in the crowd.  Dean recognizes Brising, the Cait Sidhe who met them over Cas’s body.  He squeezes Cas’s hand tighter as Brising meets his eye.  The silver tabby shivers a little, shaking off one form and rising into another.  She is tall with long braided silver hair, her dark skin glowing in the evening light.  She arches a delicate eyebrow at Castiel as they pause in front of her.  “I see he found you.  I regret that we were not there to die with you, Prince.”  She looks fierce and Dean doesn’t doubt that she means exactly that.

Castiel bows to her gracefully without loosening his hold on Dean’s hand.  “My Lady Brising.  Someone murmured something in my ear, which you might also have heard in the wind.”

She studied the deadly-sharp nails of her right hand.  “It’s possible.  One hears so many whispers on the wind.”  Cas tenses his grip, the only outward sign of what could be impatience.  Brising studies Dean for a moment, and he feels small under that emerald jewel gaze.  “Remember what you promised, Dean Morningstar.  You will not be alone.  Indeed, if you look behind you, I will be there.  If you are true, you will not feel my claws in your back.”  With one final long look at Dean and then Castiel, she turns and melts into the crowd.  Dean feels Cas relax beside him.

“So, is her promising not to knife me in the kidneys a good thing, or what?”  Dean asks.  

Castiel gives him a pleased half smile.  “As good as a declaration of loyalty.  Brising is true, and always has been an ally of our house.  It’s her right to stand on the sidelines.  But she has chosen to fight, and I take that as a good sign.”  He frowns, then, suddenly suspicious.  “What did you promise her?”

Dean narrows his eyes.  “I swore I would  kill Raphael for killing you.”

Castiel peers at him, head cocked and eyes at a squint.  “Well.”  His mouth purses.  “That certainly ups the stakes a bit.”

“I meant it, Cas.  I don’t even care that you aren’t dead.  I just know you died protecting me, and I’m not gonna let that go.”

Cas gives him a soft smile, one that makes Dean grin helplessly back.  Cas takes his head in both hands and kisses him, lingering, his tongue lapping delicately at Dean’s lips.  They break apart at Hannah’s voice.  “Castiel!  Dean!  It’s time.”  Dean doesn’t want to leave the circle of Cas’s warmth, but he forces himself to take a small step back.  He tugs fingers through his hair and nods at Hannah.  

“So how are we gonna do this?”

(=^..^=)(=^..^=)(=^..^=)

The same question is echoing inside his head now, in an incessant loop .  Dean fingers the spine of the blade that is tucked into his belt, a loop of weather-beaten leather wrapped around the blade side of the guard.  He is not actually certain he can fight with a knife, although he has theoretical knowledge, and plenty of practice watching people get knifed on television.  Dean figures he’s good with his hands; he’ll figure it out.  But what is actually worrying him is the fullness of the hall; there are so many people here that he can’t see any floor.  

A susurration ripples through the crowd, and everyone falls silent.  A tall Fae with dark skin walks onto a raised platform in the middle of the hall.  Castiel leans into Dean, pressing in from in front of him.  “Raphael,” he whispers.  Dean can’t help but focus on this person who is supposed to be his biological father.  He looks nothing like Dean.  

Raphael speaks.  “I am Raphael Lightningwing.  I do not speak for either the Summer or the Winter Court, although born of the former.  You know me as one among many who has fought to keep war from overtaking us.   Perhaps tonight… it is Mabon, and there is a Truthspeaker in our midst.  Let the one who claims to be my son come forth.”

Castiel looks as discomfited as Dean feels. He had expected a challenge, not an endorsement.  Castiel nods at him, compassion in his blue eyes.  Dean steps forward and the susurration starts up again.  He takes in the faces ringed around him-- pale and dark, human-like and not, but regardless, their eyes all fixed on him.  With a calm he does not feel, he tugs his shirt over his head to expose the leaf-mark on his breast.  Raphael observes him carefully.  Dean focuses on him, remembering the careful wording that Castiel had given him.  “I am your son, called Morningstar after my mother.  I am Dean Winchester, and a Truthspeaker, as my birthright.”  The words sound no less stilted and awkward now than they did in his head.

“Dean Winchester, raised in the human realm by Robert Kitsune, the librarian.”  Raphael pauses, smiles.  “ I tried to have you killed, but I did not succeed.  You are a fine looking young man.”  A tittering laugh echoes outward, balanced by shocked exhalations.

Immediately Dean can see what Raphael is attempting: admitting that he wanted Dean dead takes a lot of the wind out of their sails, and to discredit him as a pretty child, inept and not capable of understanding the complex political world of the Fae.  Deep down, Dean doesn’t disagree with him.  But he has no choice in the matter.  This is the battlefield, and it won’t matter that he can’t use a blade, because words are the weapon of choice.  He bows his head slightly.  “I thank you, Father.  I take after you in that respect.”

“Oh?  Only in that respect?  Well, I do admit you look very little like me.”

“Am I your son?”

A tiny flicker of discontent discolors Raphael’s golden eyes for a moment.  He can’t utter a bald-face lie in Dean’s presence under this moon, not on Mabon.  “I cannot say that you aren’t,” is as close as he comes.  

Dean presses further.  “Why did you wish me dead, Father?”

Raphael sighs.  “Because of what you represent, Dean.  You were a mistake.  Surely even you can understand that.  And look at what happened.  Because of your birth, we have been at war these long years.”

Dean parses it.  Nothing is technically a lie.  “Did you intend my birth the start a war?”

“You are very important, Dean, but not in the way you would lead us to believe.”

“Answer the question, Father.”

“Then, no,” Raphael answers easily.  “I did not intend your birth to start a war.  But now your mother has returned from her long exile.  Perhaps it was she that intended such a thing, since she was the one who protected you.  If I had had my way, you would have died unsung, with no one the wiser.”

Dean latches on to the one thing he is certain of.  “Exile?  Will my Mother not come forth and answer this?”

The murmuring grows louder.  From the side of the Winter Court, a small blonde Fae steps lightly onto the platform.  She is breathtakingly beautiful.  She gazes long at Raphael, and he back at her.  Then she turns to Dean.  His own green eyes gaze back at him.

“Dean.  My son.  You are well?”  Her voice is musical and sweet, and he feels an overwhelming urge to go to her.  A hand presses into his calf, and he looks down to see Bikett shaking his head.  His meaning is clear.  Dean mentally takes inventory.

“Mother.  I am well.  Thank you for asking.  And I trust you are healthy?”

She beams at him.  “Such a polite boy!  Robert raised you well.”

“He did his best, ma’am.”  Dean’s mind is jumping, attempting to find a foothold in this downward spiral.  He grasps onto Raphael’s last spoken thought.  “There’s something I don’t understand.  Were you exiled?”

She frowns softly, her eyes flicking back and forth from Dean to Raphael.  “I don’t know that I ever thought of it as such.  I was in fear of my life.  I was hiding from an abusive spouse who wanted me and my son dead. Do you blame me?”

The thread is escaping Dean.  He is grasping, but these two are slippery.  Lucidia continues to frown at Raphael.  “That is why I have called this joint meet, on Mabon, witnessed by a Truthspeaker.  I call for Raphael’s banishment, for the abuses he has inflicted on myself, my family, and on the people of this realm.”  Her voice gains in volume.  “He has pitted the courts against one another, and we have had war unending.”

“How have I done such a thing, Luci?”  Raphael turns to face her, and Dean is working wildly to figure out that the hell is going on.  “You kept the pregnancy from me, when you knew what the child would mean for us.  And then you abandoned us, allowed the Winter Court to believe I had you killed?”

Dean’s head is spinning.  He is certain they have been working together now.  He has to take control back, or they are going to spin a web between them that will ensnare.  Castiel is vibrating with tenseness beside him, and Hannah is on his other side, her concern palpable.  He is surrounded by friends, but this is his fight;  it is what he was born for.  This has to count.

“I would ask one question of you both.”  His voice rings out into the open space, and is greeted with sudden silence.  He takes a breath.  “Whose plan was it to murder the members of the Joint Council?”

Dean had thought there was silence before, but the chamber becomes a noiseless vacuum.  Luci and Raphael are both staring at him.  He raises an eyebrow.  “I mean, Mother Lucidia, your ‘home’ in the Beyond-the-Woods is a Fae deathtrap, right?”  He lets that sink into the silence.  “Why else would you live at the center of a labyrinth made of iron?”

Lucidia is frowning at him now.  He continues.  “I rescued Hannah King and the Prince Castiel Grimalkin from a well lined with iron sheeting.  I finally figured out how you got them both into the well.  Two powerful Cait Sidhe, far stronger than you.  By the time they had made their way through your maze of rusted-out vintage automobiles, they would have been exhausted.”  Beside him, both Hannah and Castiel nod, glancing at each other.  “And what was it then?  Trapdoor?”  And what made you immune from its effects?”

“Long exposure can build up some immunity.”  The gruff voice surprises Dean-- surprises everyone.  Bobby is standing to the side, dirty hat in his hands, his fox ears flicking back and forth.  Dean is immediately relieved to see him, the feeling of love in his heart explosive compared to the bitter wariness he feels for his biological parents.  He gives his full attention to Bobby.   “Dean, you should know.  Both you and I have lived the past 20 years surrounded by iron.  It made us both weak and sick, but you got stronger every year, more resistant.”  Bobby toes the floor in front of him.  “I am sorry, Dean.”

“I know, Bobby.  I forgive you.  I know you were keeping me safe.”  They smile tentatively at each other, before both turning back to Raphael and Luci, standing silent in the eyes of the entire room.  Luci scowls, her delicate face stormy.  

“Well, what a sweet reunion,” she sneers. 

“I could say the same for you and Raphael,” Dean says.  “Answer this question and we can all go home and celebrate.  How many Fae have died in that well?”

For a moment, he thinks she is not going to answer.  Then, “I lost count.”  Her face relaxes into boredom.  “Raphy sent them to me, all that defied him.  It was a good system.”  Raphael is glaring at her, as if she had just betrayed him.  The Joined Court erupts into chaos.  Raphael raises his right hand into the air.

Everything seems to happen at once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next-- Fur and feathers fly in the only kind of fight that can acceptably called a 'cat fight.' Hopefully a resolution, if these chapters don't keep splitting like amoebas.


	14. Chapter 14

As quickly as Castiel moves, Raphael is faster.  A sword appears in the Fae's upraised hand, long bladed and narrow, the blade itself pale blue and translucent.  Raphael swings it down as Castiel leaps under his guard, and they go down in a pile of fur and lightening.  Dean drags his blade from his belt, his legs tensing, but he is caught for a moment with the nightmare vision of an army of  Fae  emerging from the crowd with weapons raised.  Lucidia is shouting something Dean can't make out as Hannah lunges for her.  A hundred cats explode out of nowhere, yowling war cries and tearing into flesh.  It is utter fucking chaos.

Dean charges into the fray with little thought for his own safety, shoving and slashing his way through in an attempt to reach Castiel.  He catches a flash out of the corner of his eye and glances up to see Balthazar blocking a Fae's glass blade from hacking off Dean's wrist.  Balthazar drives the long knife in his other hand into the throat of the attacker, and kicks it off the end.  He turns to grin grimly at Dean.

"Didn't expect me to miss all the fun, eh Dean?"  Dean presses his back against Bal's as they slash and fight their way through the surging mass of Fae towards Castiel and Raphael, who are buried beneath the throng.  Dean is too overwhelmed to reply, but he is grateful for the Captain's solid presence at his back.  They steadily carve a ring out around themselves and shove forward until Dean can see Castiel, huge and black and screaming bloody murder, laying into Raphael with both front paws as Raphael desperately hacks the sword against his bleeding flank.  Dean reaches out and snags Raphael's wrist on a  back swing , tugs it to the floor and kneels on his forearm.  Raphael's sword clatters from this grip and Balthazar swipes it from the floor.  Dean can see Raphael's eyes widen at the same time Dean raises his blade for a deathblow.  

"NO!"

The shout rings out above the cacophony of howls and cries.  Everyone pauses, the entire hall frozen in mid-swing in a tableau Dean would think comical if he wasn't about to kill someone.  Dean turns to the source of the shout, and is shocked.  It is  Lucidia .

Her arms are stretched out, her back bowed away from where Hannah is holding her bodily.  Ludicia's eyes are wide with horror and despair.  She cries into the silence, "Spare him!"  

Raphael is breathing hard, his eyes on his wife.  Castiel shivers into his human shape, weighing down on Raphael's prone body.  He nods at Balthazar, who lifts Raphael off the floor and binds him.  Castiel stands up from the floor, and gives his hand to Dean, who takes it and stands as well.  Castiel turns to gaze at Lucidia.

"That is not my decision to make."

"I will take him.  We will go.  Past the Gate."  Raphael slumps in Balthazar's grip, sullen and defeated.  He nods once, and then bows his head into his hands and is silent.  

(=^..^=)(=^..^=)(=^..^=) 

It takes surprisingly little time to organize the Council.  A little bit of bloodshed right in the council chambers made protocol slightly less compelling than normal.  Bikett takes a place on the Council, and Hannah, and Alaras as well, along with four others the Dean doesn't know.  They sit at a hastily cleared table, heads together.  Raphael and Lucidia have been bound in iron and taken deep into the maze of corridors outside the hall.

Dean sits against a wall close to the door that leads outside, along with Castiel and Balthazar, who is cleaning his blades with the air of much practice.  Castiel slumps against Dean's shoulder as Dean finishes wiping the shallow sword cuts on the Cait Sidhe's flank free of blood.  He twitches but otherwise makes no noise until Dean wraps a clean bandage around Cas's middle and tucks the loose end underneath the wrap.  It's not awesome but it will hold until they can get him proper care.  Dean presses his hand against Cas's cheek, threads his fingers through the sweaty curls under Cas's ear.  "You ok?" he murmurs.

Castiel hums, his blue eyes focused softly on Dean.  Up close, Dean can see the deeply-etched lines under his eyes and around his mouth, his blue eyes overbright with exhaustion.  He grazes a thumb across Cas's full bottom lip, and Cas kisses his  thumbtip .  "Dean," he breathes. "Dean, I'm going to sleep right here for a week straight."  He snuggles down on Dean's shoulder, his knee in Dean's lap, chest to chest.  Dean smiles softly at him, kisses his forehead and brings his arm round Castiel's back.

"Nah, I'll take you to a warm, soft bed as soon as someone tells us we can go."

"The two of you are turning my stomach,"  Balthazar mutters at them.  Dean turns to him and sees both Bal and Bobby watching them.  Bobby has a sappy look on his face that vanishes the moment Dean spots him.  The old kitsune clears his throat and looks away.

"Reckon we can find a room for the two of you to recover in.  Things are going to be pretty unsettled here for a while.  I've been asked to help out, and I guess I won't say no."  Dean gives him an honest smile, and he can see Bobby visibly relax.

"It'll go faster if you're on it, Bobby.  They clearly need people who aren't going to put up with any shit."

"Yeah, well."  Bobby nods at him and stands up slowly, knees creaking.  He gives Dean one last soft smile and makes his way over to the Council.  Dean sighs and relaxes into the heavy warmth of Castiel against him.  

(=^..^=)(=^..^=)(=^..^=)

Hannah wakes Dean some time later with a shake to the shoulder that doesn't have Castiel plastered against it.  Her blue eyes are solemn.  "We have decided to grant Lucidia's request, and allow them to go beyond the Final Gate."

Dean wonders why she is telling him this, and then realizes.  "Hannah, I don't consider them my parents, so I don't have any opinion on their fate, really.  Bobby raised me, and that makes him family.  Maybe not perfect, but family."  

Hannah gives him a small but genuine smile. She inhales deeply.  "Dean Truthspeaker, I give you permission to woo my son.  Do you understand what that entails?"

Dean swallows, but his mind is clear.  "He told me it's a forever thing."

"And you will honor that?"  Her eyebrow arcs slightly.

"If he'll have me."  Dean's throat tightens, but it's not fear.  He looks down at Castiel's face, relaxed in sleep.  Castiel shifts against him.

"Can we wait to be wed after I wake?" the Cait Sidhe grumbles, snuggling deeper into Dean and twitching his nose.  Dean pets his thick curls affectionately.  By the time he looks up, Hannah is back across the room, but the eyes of the Council are on them.  Bikett is grinning with every tooth he has.  Even Alaras is sporting a dopey half-smile.  

Dean drifts off against the wall, Castiel pressed against him.  For the first time in his life he feels unbroken, and his dreams are untroubled.

The next time Dean wakes he is flat on his back, it's dark, and he is being  smushed  into a soft surface by something very heavy.  He grunts and tries to shift, but strong hands press into him and hold him still.  "If you're thinking of getting up, I will do my best to dissuade you," Castiel murmurs into his ear.  Dean shivers at the brush of his warm breath, and his hands tighten on Cas's hips.  Slowly he registers that it's not cloth but skin against his skin, and a flush bursts through him.

"How are we naked?"  Dean is running hot, and he feels Cas chuckle against his shoulder.  "I don't remember that part."

Castiel nuzzles his throat and then behind his ear, and Dean shivers again, a tiny, breathy moan escaping his parted lips.  "Would you prefer to get up and get dressed?"  Cas's voice rumbles against Dean's ear, and hot kisses follow, tracing up the muscular arch of Dean's neck into his hair.

"Oh hell no, Cas… oh, damn."  Dean arches up against Castiel's body, turning his head to give him better access to the soft skin over the join of his neck and shoulder.  Dean's cock is tucked warmly into the crease of Cas's hip and thigh, and he can feel Cas's cockhead jut wetly against his hipbone.  Cas purrs deep in his chest and lifts himself up to align more perfectly against Dean's body.  Their cocks cradle together in the basin of their hips, and Dean exhales a contentedly aroused sigh.  He reaches for Cas's chin and brings him into a kiss.

They nestle against each other, trading sleepy open-mouthed kisses and leaving handprints all over each other's skin.  Dean slides opens his thighs and Cas sinks down further against him, rolling his hips and groaning at the delirious sensation.  Dean reaches down and grips Cas's muscular ass, squeezes hard as he raises his knees, pushing up against Cas as he presses down.  They both shudder and groan, and Cas's head drops against Dean's sternum, hot breath grazing over his nipple.  

"Dean… Dean, oh…"  Castiel plants one hand on the mattress by Dean's hip and slides the other in-between them, taking both of them in hand.  Dean moans his approval, ruts his hips helplessly into Castiel's hand.  He grips Cas's head and brings him in for a wet, uncoordinated kiss, and then they are just breathing into each other's open mouths, rutting and panting in a blissful join.  Dean thinks that he will make a home cradled in Castiel's hips, and he must say it aloud because Cas hums in agreement and kisses his chin, rocks into him, building gorgeous white hot pressure like a tightening spring deep in his belly, until his entire body shudders and locks up and he spends over Castiel's fist.

Dean's body spasms, thrusting hard with his orgasm, and shoves Castiel over the edge.  Come spurts and drips over Dean's trembling stomach as Cas groans his pleasure into Dean's mouth.  Cas collapses bonelessly on top of him, and they lay panting together.  Dean grins then, his arms tight around Castiel's back.  "Good morning."

"It's actually well past morning.  We've slept almost a full day."  Cas drags his hand through their cooling come and spins slick patterns on Dean's stomach, purring quietly deep in his chest.  It's such a calming sound that Dean forgets to protest about his increasingly tacky skin, and instead relaxes into the mattress and tugs Cas more tightly against him.  Everything else can wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for sticking with me, and for all the wonderful comments that have fueled my fic fire. You guys rock. Please let me know f you liked this, or if you have ideas for any timestamps.


End file.
